I've refitted all the hydraulics in the rear of the car.
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| Pipework in the left rear wheel arch |
There is pipework to and from the rear height corrector and pipework to the suspension and brake on each side. All of that had been removed for chassis painting.
Removal - Left Hand Side
Most of the hydraulics are in the left wheel arch - behind a protective shield - so I started there. there is also a small horizontal protective shield and that needs to come off too. I'd stripped it all out when I was preparing the rear half of the chassis for painting, but there was a lot of work in-between! Many years ago - probably as far back as 1996, I removed the dust shield and sprayed everything up with Waxoyl to protect it. It didn't look pretty.....
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| So much muck! |
....but I don't think that was a bad idea as I've seen what can happen if that area is neglected and left to its own devices.mMy problem now was one mostly of underseal, thick waxy and dirt. It was everywhere, and it was hard to work out what was going on.
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| It's hard to work out what's going on |
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| Temporary split pin in the height corrector linkage |
I removed the short, cranked operating rod for the rear height corrector so that I could clean the muck off. There is a bifurcated rivet through the join on the end tucked behind the height corrector, and a similar on join to the long rod through the sill. To remove the cranked operating rod you then need to fold the small metal tab up. You can then lift the rod from its cradle.
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| Operating arm removed from it's cradle - revealing rust... |
Slowly the various parts and joins revealed themselves. I took a lot of reference photos as I went along - as the pipes needed to be fitted in a certain way and so that they do not rub against each other.
I discovered a little bracket holding the sill pipes to the chassis. There are two nuts holding it to the blind side of the vertical seam.
With that removed, I was able to get between the pipes to undo their joins and remove the rear height corrector. Its two bolts are hidden away behind the hardura lining in the boot - so you need to pull that back to reveal them.
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| Height corrector removed |
Gradually I undid and removed all the clips and joining pipes
I was then able to remove the suspension feed and brake swivel. Later cars use a rubber flexi-hose instead of a brake swivel and you need to undo the hydraulic pipe connection and remove the thin nuts to release the hose ends from their brackets.
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| Rubber brake hose (credit: Jeff Lannigan) |
In my case, the swivel is held to the arm by a special tapered screw and lock nut. They are very hard to find under all the dirt on the end of the swinging arm. Those locking screws rust and are very easy to round-off by accident. The small screw has a hex end BUT you need to release/ slacken the larger lock nut before trying to remove the locking screw. Once that screw is fully removed, the spindle of the swivel.....
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| Spindle on the swivel. Note the hole for the locking screw |
......then pulls out of the suspension arm.
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| Hard to spot - brake swivel locking screw on end of swinging arm |
On the swivel is a locating lever that simply sits in an angled bracket on the chassis to stop that half of the swivel rotating. The swivel unit just slides out of that bracket.
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| The locating lever sits in an angled bracket screwed to the chassis |
The left hand swivel has an integral 'T' to take fluid off to the right hand swivel and brake unit.
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| 'T' ending on the swivel pipe |
Later cars with rubber hoses have a 'T' piece instead - so the plumbing and brackets found on later cars is slightly different to that found on mine.
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| 'T' piece - as used with a rubber brake hose |
Removing the swivel left only the brake and suspension pipes passing through the chassis to the right hand side and the height corrector control rod from the rear torsion bar.
On my car, the run of four pipes through the sill are all one continuous length - front to back - so couldn't be split in the middle. I had to leave them in situ and just tie them out of the way for chassis cleaning and painting.
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| Painting with a rust preventer - I chose to paint around the pipes |
I cleaned and rebuilt the rear height corrector.
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| Cleaning and rebuilding the height corrector |
You can see my write-up of cleaning and rebuilding my front height corrector HERE.
Removal - Right Hand Side
Compared to the left, the right hand side was easier to strip. With no height corrector it was mostly return pipes. Plus of course the fuel tank filler and breather. Yes - everything was covered in underseal and Waxoyl - but there were fewer parts and so less of it. After a bit of a clean up, I started out by removing the two nylon suspension boot return lines from the rubber elbow. By which I mean this bit.
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| Elbow - at the end of the sill |
Removing the clip around its neck allows you to pull out the two nylon lines. They have fattened ends, so sometimes they just pull out......
.......and sometimes they pull out with the deep rubber 'plug' that is inside the elbow.
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| Nylon pipes and plug from inside elbow |
The only other preparatory work was to remove the clips and protective rubbers......
......and to remove the brake swivel - just like I did on the left side.
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| Brake swivel in the right and wheel arch |
Incidentally - and you can see it in the photo above - my car has long had a slight weep from that brake swivel union. It had even been commented-on in a service report from 1996. I had assumed the leak was the articulating joint itself, and had expected to fit a replacement swivel unit. The joint was very hard to undo. Much to my surprise, when I split the pipe joint I found......nothing. Not even a rubber pipe seal! No wonder it had been leaking! It was relying on a metal-to-metal join. Only took me 28 years to get to the bottom of that........
With the swivel removed and the mystery solved, I could get on with cleaning and painting the chassis.
Refitting
I started reassembly on the right hand side as that was simpler. I glued the protective rubbers on the chassis where the elbow passes into the sill and to the ledge.
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| Protective rubbers prevent chaffing |
I cleaned up and refitted the brake swivel to the suspension arm and connected its hydraulic pipe. The swivel has a spindle.
The spindle fits through into a hole in the suspension arm and then the small tapered locking screw passes through the hole in the spindle to secure it in place. For this reason it's important to make sure there is no dirt or debris on the parts or they won't fit together. And of course you need to line up the spindle hole with the hole in the suspension arm before the pin will fit....
I refitted the nylon returns in the 'pipe' and used a Mirex buckle to grip everything tight. there is a little nylon clip to secure the nylon return lines and i cleaned and refitted that.
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| Right hand side done! |
The left hand side was pretty much as per the right side. The big difference on the left side of course, is the plumbing for the height corrector. It made it a little more involved because of the need to refit all the pipes in such a way that they did not rub.
As you can probably tell, I'd taken quite a few photos to help me understand how everything went together. But not one to show how the height corrector screws in from the boot. You need to peel back the boot lining to find a litte recessed area which is where the bolt heads are.
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| The height corrector is fitted from within the boot |
Initially I just fitted the height corrector loosely - which gave me some wiggle room for fitting the hydraulic pipes. I sensed I was going to need that!
I screwed the four-way union to the chassis with its little bracket and began connecting up each of its four pipes. I found it easier to fit the curled pipe to the union first - and then connect it to the height corrector.
I fitted the brake swivel with its locking screw and lock nut. You can just about see the locking pin in this photo.
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| Brake swivel locking screw and lock nut |
The brake pipe (and it's protective rubber) was located under the tab on the arm and the pipe was connected to the brake cylinder behind the hub.
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| Brake hydraulic pipe |
Colour coded tags on the pipes from the sill helped to make refitting less complicated - as did the lengths and bends on pipes: by elimination it became clear what needed to go where.
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| The pipes through the sills have coloured coded tags at both ends. |
I refitted the suspension cylinder pipe. it has a protective rubber collar where it passes behind the dust shield.
The return from the suspension runs under the height corrector and goes to the rubber elbow on the right hand side. On the left side, I hadn't had to disturb that nylon pipe.
The brake swivel union sits in front of the four way union and was the last thing to be connected up.
I glued the rubber protect strip to the edge of the opening in the sill and refitted the strap that holds the run of pipes in place.
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| Protective strap refitted |
When it was all cleaned and fitted, it looked like this.
I did a test fit with the small horizontal shield under the pipework - to test for clearance - and made some slight adjustments to pipe positions as a result.
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| Checking the clearance of the lower shield |
Once I was happy that none of the pipes were touching, I tighten the pipe seals and bolted up the height corrector in the boot.
