When working with the rear brakes, I mentioned that I should have checked the front before ordering any parts. That’s advice I should have followed!
The Jag soft lines that I got – Sunsong 2202540 – are about an inch shorter than the original Maserati – manufactured by Pirelli, if I’m reading the old rubber correctly. I was able to get them installed onto the proportioning valve and then connected to the hard line at the bracket on each control arm, but at full droop they’re a little bit tight. I’m also a little bit concerned that the left side line is going to rub against the fuel line. For the $2000 Challenge, however, they’re fine.
Once those were installed, I connected the front end of the line to the master cylinder and hooked up the Bowie Bleeder. Opening up each side bleeder in turn, the pressure bleeder very quickly filled the lines, the caliper cylinders, and pushed out all the air. Moving to the front, I got the left side opened up and the air out of the three bleeders. Finally, I moved to the front right, but got absolutely nothing out of any of the bleeders. My guess was that the front soft lines were collapsed as well – the two lines do not share anything other than the master cylinder but both lines on the other side which are fed by the same ports on the master cylinder do work just fine. These lines were pretty well frozen in place, though. My final discovery about that was that the problem was that the fitting was stuck to the hard line and wouldn’t turn so by focusing on turning the soft line instead, I was able to get it to release.
Figuring that out, however, required some learning. I tried a penetrating lubricant and then striking it a few times, but that didn’t seem to help. Naturally, I then broke out the torch. That also didn’t get me anywhere as far as loosening the fitting, but after I moved away from it for a moment I heard a pop and there was suddenly smoke everywhere.
The hose blew straight out of the crimp fitting, but nothing else was damaged.
Dorman makes replacement soft lines for the other end of the same Jag model, so I decided to order those up. These H38546 hoses are about 3 inches longer than the Maserati lines so I think they’ll work better for the rear. The eventual plan is to put those longer hoses on the rear and the shorter ones on the front, but I may just leave the rears in place for now.
Since I’m waiting on the brakes, I moved under the hood to get things buttoned up there. The alternator belt is all tightened up now and hunting around in the pile of spares netted me the bracket that holds the radiator in place.
The carb hat needs to be resealed, but the original gasket is pretty chewed up. Instead of running down a new one, I’m going to use some fuel-safe RTV. But before I make that final, the carb hat should be a little more presentable. The order is in for a couple cans of VHT wrinkle paint in red and while I wait for that, I got the carb hat off and disassembled.
The look that I’m going for is the shiny trident on the red wrinkle so before I put the paint on it, I figured it would be easier to get the logo polished when I didn’t have to worry about damaging a fresh coat. I hit it with some steel wool, 400 grit sandpaper, a bronze whiz wheel, and some aluminum polish. It didn’t take a lot of effort to get it looking like this:
From there, I put the hat in the ultrasonic cleaner to get it cleaned up and ready to be painted.
Next up, the battery needed to be tied down. Tim had an old battery laying about that’s not great but should be good enough. None of the battery tie-down brackets were with the car, so I needed to manufacture a solution. I started with this bit of file cabinet that I had in my scrap pile.
I measured it and then using my hydraulic press as a brake, I bent it into shape.
To attach it to the bracket, I used a bit of metal rod from the same file cabinet scrap, cutting it and bending it to fit in the existing spot on the car and then bending the hold down strap around it.
The battery is quite secure now, but I will try to make some small adjustments to make it look a little more perfect.
