The Road Trip to Cavallino Begins!

[365gtc/4]

Tom's story should be an inspiration to all you guys in the NE States. So come on Mike M, Sam, Michael B etc you guys should all start to plan for next year's Cavallino. Get a 10 to 20 car convey together. Even load the cars into containers and ship them to DC if necessary and then drive from there.

[mdempsey]

TY now has a new nickname.....'Two Brake Tommy' His motto is 'I don't need no stinkin brakes'. I'm taking orders for t shirts!!

(He was 3 brake until the master move from Bill's house to the Breakers on just rear brakes) (This will now supercede his Late Night nickname of 'Tommy Two Grand'!!

[Michael Bayer]

John I was planning to go with them but work preempted, i am planning to next year, someone has to bring all the spare parts!

[365gtc/4]

John I was planning to go with them but work preempted, i am planning to next year, someone has to bring all the spare parts!

Michael
If you are planning to carry the spare parts I suggest you fit a Tow Bar to your C4 so you can haul a trailer. Maybe tow a whole car to rat for parts as needs arise.
John

[BT]

I got the garage all cleaned up and pressure washed yesterday afternoon. Since I don't have a vintage car there is no reason to have oil and radiator coolant on the floor. Now the whole place smells like Gain! I'll use any excuse to clean the garage up.

BT

[tyang]

My 330 America is safely parked in my garage. It was a relatively uneventful trip home, but stress of the last several days has taken its toll! The complete story to follow...

Tom

[The Healey Werks]

I think the photo of a nearly 50 year old car with 3 working brakes and an iffy fuel pump being DRIVEN next to a brand new car on a TRAILER says it all. If you have some ingenuity, gaffer tape, an old wire coat hanger, a screw driver etc and a NEVER SAY DIE attitude you can get these old cars going. What a great story to tell the grand kids. Of course they will think old pop have lost his marbles because they know that cars cannot be fixed except with a new "unit" from the factory. Great story Tom and Co. I was willing you guys on.
John

Tom Y.- I too have been following this story since you guys left and I agree 100% with John(365gtc/4) on this story. trailering a brand new car.....come on. I can't imagine the stress you were under but this will be a story told mulitple times by multiple people. I was intrigued the minute you guys all left and read every minute of it and you never came close to defeat. "where there is a will, there is a way"

take care-
Brad

[PSk]

An interesting question could be how a fire can occur on the brakeline ?
Is this a mysterry?
No I dont think so.
I have seen a lot of those burning brakesystem on downhill/mountian stages on classicrallyes
The marchalls on the time control in the valley had always several basket of water standing by.
The piston was stuck on Toms car ,that means the rotor is getting REDhot but at the sametime the DOT-4 fluid is getting to boil
When the car was parked at the fareway of his sister the "cooling" of the rubberbrakeline was gone,
So I expect the ruber line was perforated by the boiling DOT-4 and make a nice oilspray on the REDHOT rotor.
so the fire could be started.
To clear is why the piston didnot return, Well this is almost allways produced by water in the braking system.
I would recommend to check this before refilling, after repair.


Any other explanations will be interesting.

C.

If the brake line was not new (during this cars restoration) I would suspect that it collapse internally and thus prevented the fluid returning thus causing the caliper to stick. A common problem.

Boiling brake fluid should not cause a hose to fail (otherwise hoses would be bursting all over the place as we hoon around occasionly causing brake fade), unless the hose was weak in the first place, which again points to my comments above.

As always though when you rebuild brakes, you should rebuild both sides at the same time ... and if this was my car AND budget permitted I'd replace both front brake discs with new ones as that right front one has had some serious over-heating now.

Best
Pete

[tyang]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for everyone's support, but there's a fine line between a hero and a fool! I'm glad I didn't get into an accident doing what I did, but I was determined to get to Cavallino.

The brakes were completely rebuilt with new rubber and steel lines, and rebuilt master and boosters installed. The only thing I did not address was the front equalizer. That said, I still think the sequence that occurred was the right front caliper seized and when I stopped driving, the heat from the red hot rotor caused the rubber hose to spontaneously combust. The fire burned through the hose, causing the fluid to come out and release the caliper. I'm still suspect the equalizer to be involved, but I need to investigate further.

I'm not getting back under my car for a few days. I need a break!

Tom

[PSk]

Tom,

I'm not familiar with this "equalizer" term. Could you please explain?

If the caliper was rebuilt, seems very strange that it would suddenly seize considering you actually use your car sparingly. Anyway you will easily sort it .
Best
Pete

[tyang]

Tom,

I'm not familiar with this "equalizer" term. Could you please explain?

If the caliper was rebuilt, seems very strange that it would suddenly seize considering you actually use your car sparingly. Anyway you will easily sort it .
Best
Pete

Hi Pete,

http://www.tomyang.net/cars/BrakeBoosterValve.htm

Tom

[PSk]

For the hose to catch fire, there must have been fire somewhere else first. Those things are designed for enormous heat. No way boiling brake fluid should cause the rubber to burst into flames and the heat from a brake disc shouldn't either. Many people classic race their old car still with rubber hoses and my Alfa Sud (sold ages ago) ended up with permanently blue discs from racing, thus they were very hot.

It is possible that the pads flamed up and maybe by chance a flame caught the rubber hose, otherwise I've got my money on a hose collapse. Maybe a dud hose.

Also if the caliper was what seized removing fluid pressure would not have unseized it, so I'm not convinced there. Something was stopping the fluid returning on that side .. unless you forced the pads back physically when you blocked the hydraulics with the piece of lead.
Pete

[PSk]

Tom,

I'm not familiar with this "equalizer" term. Could you please explain?

If the caliper was rebuilt, seems very strange that it would suddenly seize considering you actually use your car sparingly. Anyway you will easily sort it .
Best
Pete

Hi Pete,

http://www.tomyang.net/cars/BrakeBoosterValve.htm

Tom

Wow, how utterly complicated. As for equalising there is no need as pressure is always even, thus as long as the pressure coming out of the master cylinder goes to both front brakes it does not matter if one side is 10mm long and the other side 1km long. So it's only function is boosting the brake pressure. I guess with early brake boosters this was required, but interesting considering the small amount of rubber they had on the road too. Very interesting thanks .

Pete

[tyang]

I know many people who have simply eliminated this unit without any problems. I did an informal survey and found Dew Motors rebuilds them and Motion Products guts them and converts them to simple tees. I'm going to try to take mine apart to see the innards, but I'm probably going to gut mine. We'll see.

Tom

[tyang]

Here's a picture from the Tomyang.net/GTE Registry party held at Ron Gaeta's house: