Broken brakes!

Yes it didn't take long to break the PI but then you do need to lay spanners upon a new car sometime.
I took it out for a blat and had one of those funny pedal moments where you think "Hey up, this doesn't feel right" so I drove home carefully without using the brakes much. I parked up and took a look in the fluid reservoir - low. Hmmm, lets have a looksee under the car and there it was, immediately obvious. Brake fluid all over the inside of the front wheel on the driver's side. Damn! One of the Stag calipers was NOS and one was a reconditioned one - they were provided by the previous owner for fitting so their provenance was uncertain. Yup - the NOS one was fine and it was the nice shiny plated new one that had let go. It was hard to see where the fluid was coming from but it was obvious that it was going to have to come out for a looksee.
It all looked OK but it obviously wasn't. I tested it as best I could on the bench and then stripped it, separating the calipers to find that the seal inside didn't look like the replacement - it was smaller, not so tall. It wasn't obvious where they had been leaking so I pulled all the seals out, cleaned it all up and examined for cracks or other defects. I then rebuilt the caliper with new seals, refitted and bled the brakes - I was going to go out for a test drive but it's hammering down with rain here now and frankly I don't want to go out in it inless I have to!
I'll go for a test drive tomorrow and see if that's fixed it, I hope so as so far my attempts to fix other stuff have failed miserably - the fuel gauge is still all over the place, new stabiliser on the way.
As for the Vitesse, the new owner is coming tomorrow to pay the balance and take it away. I'll be sorry to see it go but then nothing lasts forever.

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