Dr Mark's Tardis

 September 2022 MOT passed first time. LHS engine earth point repaired (that fixed a horn and indicator problem)  Brakes bled ok (confirmed by cross roads garage), but the brake pedal was still spongy. I manually adjusted the rear drums and that solved the problem.  June Oil change,  June camper dude damage repaired. 

After the problems with the brake hoses and overheating brakes  I decided to replace the brake linings. Now this used to be a standard process and the old hands at any garage will know how to do it, but won't have to tools any more. Now linings are generally bonded in place and sold as a unit on the shoes. Old linings: Not so the Iveco, it is riveted and linings can be purchased, Iveco part numbers: set of 4 linings 1906055 £113  rivets 1118477 52 at 6p each prices from Vexi (the rivets were stock clearance, normal price is 52p each!) Where to go for the riveting? That proved harder than expected. Having agreed with a small Warwick company that they could do them and had the tools and decades of experience, they made a hash of it. So I cut off the rivets and sent the shoes to Digraph Ltd in Nuneaton, who in turn send them to a specialist in Rotherham. Very pleased with the results: I'd like to add an expert guide to refitting brake...

While bleeding the brakes, pressure vanished and I found fluid squiring out on the front nearside tyre. A solid brake hose had sprung a leak. Odd because I had not done anything to it. On investigation it turned out to be an original steel pipe that had rusted through and fortunately burst in the drive. I had thought it was copper with a mess of underseal on it. Wrong: it was steel pitted with corrosion. I found one other steel pipe in the engine compartment in rather better condition, and replaced both. At 23 years old original steel pipes are an accident waiting to happen.

The handbrake was a rather loose so I tightened it, right? Wrong! Well it is manual adjustment so it seemed sensible to adjust the cable. A week later it was loose again. This time I thought more about it. Plus an overheating smell from the rear brake drums that Karen noticed. The point is that the handbrake should only need adjusting to take up gradual wear of the brake shoes - but that is gradual and quite minor. So really there is a problem to be solved. The handbrake cable was in good condition, as it should be at only a couple of years old. One brake drum showed deterioration of the linings and a brake cylinder that did not retract. But it was not seized opening the bleed nipple sent a shot of fluid and the cylinder retracted as it should. There was a blockage preventing the brake fluid going back to the master cylinder. One of the flexible brake hoses was blocked. The middle one between the cab and chassis: others are between the cab and each front wheel and chassis and rea...

the brakes are good .... except that on rare occasions the fluid level drops. I tracked that down to a leak from the master cylinder into the booster. Southam Mini metro showed me how to disconnect the vacuum hose and suck up the fluid from the booster with a syringe. Some internet advice was, "just top it up, brake fluid is cheap" but I want to have 100% confidence in the brake system. It is a Bendix master cylinder and booster (later models used a Bosch version) it is only available as a complete unit part number 414844300  superseded by  99436561 The parts are common across the range. Shock horror Iveco dealers say that the part is discontinued and completely unavailable. that's the first time they have let me down, all sorts of odd bits and pieces even those special to a 4x4 seemed to be available from special order if not from stock. Vexi say the same. Zepplin trading (cheap Iveco Parts) agreed but helpfully gave me some other contacts. the forum also helped....

Replaced front brake pads as required for the MOT: See the old vs. new. I'm rather irritated that the old pads at at least 5mm of material left, when the rule for the MOT is 1.5mm (which is when the slot would disappear). The new ones had a 10mm slot (+1.5mm)