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Old 15th May 2021, 19:58
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This week I've been tackling various small jobs. Slowly working my way through my task list.
Firstly, I painted the inner rear wheel arch stays and refitted them. So that's the inner rear wheel arches completed and ticked off my list.
Whilst I have the car raised on axle stands at the rear with the rear wheels off there were a couple of other jobs I needed to do.
One was to do with the rear brakes.
I have had issues with a 'soft' brake pedal with a feeling of some air in the system. Despite numerous attempts at bleeding the brakes I couldn't get any improvement. I found one obscure reference on the internet suggesting that air can become trapped in the Sierra rear brake calipers. I removed each rear caliper and wound the piston back with a wind back tool. I then bled the rear brakes with the tool still in place to stop the piston moving out. After some aggressive pumping of the brake pedal I did get some air out of the offside caliper. The brake feel is now much better.

Brake wind back tool by Sabrebuilder, on Flickr

I was surprised that the brake fluid bled from the rear calipers was somewhat dirty and had some suspended sediment in it. Since the only brake component that isn't new or reconditioned is the rear proportioning valve, I presume this is where the dirt has come from?

Old brake fluid by Sabrebuilder, on Flickr

Another job was to remove the rear silencer and pipework.

Rear silencer by Sabrebuilder, on Flickr

Since I first fitted this I've always had a small leak at the middle joint. I'd used some joining sleeves and exhaust clamps from Jetex that looked like these...

Exhaust shortening by Sabrebuilder, on Flickr

Despite using exhaust sealing paste these didn't work very well at all and tightening the clamps didn't resolve the issue.

I've bought some of these which seem to be a much better design as the sleeve overlaps on the inside and the clamps are wider.

Exhaust clamp by Sabrebuilder, on Flickr

They look a bit flimsy in the photo but I was pleased to find when they arrived that they are very substantial. I've not fitted them yet but hopeful they will make a much better joint and keep the IVA inspector happy.

There are a few other jobs I've started but will include those in next weeks update. Until then, stay safe.......

...........peter
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