Progress and frustration

I managed to spend a bit of time on the Lancia last night, planning to replace the brake balance valve and the flexible hose from the body to the rear axle. I'd soaked the connections for the hose in penetrating fluid a few times recently to help with removal but hadn't considered replacing the valve so hadn't done that.

Having read about the valve I felt that it was worth getting refurbished but found that it was really cheap to buy and readily available from Ricambio - www.ricambio.co.uk - so bought a new one (they also supplied a new cap for the brake master cylinder so I can replace the bit of inner tube and jubilee clip seen in the last blog post!).

First job was to put penetrating fluid on the connections for the valve to give it some time to soak whilst I did the flexible hose.

Flexible hose connections came apart OK,, although it took a mole wrench on the pipe fittings to loosen them and the new one fitted easily

I then tried the connections on the valve and the first one came out OK, unfortunately whilst the union unscrewed on the second the pipe must have been stuck in the union so it sheared the pipe. And of course it is the pipe which goes to the master cylinder so had to be unclipped all the way along under the car. Anyway, having looked at it closely it was beginning to rust so needed replacing anyway. I got it off all the way along without too much problem, just wish I had more space around the car in my garage!

New brake balance limiter valve

The pipe from the valve to the flexible hose may as well be replaced too so I've dropped them both off at my local garage this morning so they can make me replacements.