My 1979 Midget had been garaged unused for 10 years. I assumed that since
it was buttoned up, it should be OK. But I discovered a nasty surprise about
the brakes.
I rebuilt my master brake cylinder on general purposes and tried to bleed
out the lines, but I could not get any flow to the rear brakes. I
disassembled the rear brakes and discovered the slave cylinders were useless
rusted paperweights.
Long story short, (I had suspected a wonky brake pressure differential
piston) I found out my apparently good rear flexible brake hose was
collapsed. I don't know if the brake fluid slowly leaked past deteriorating
seals in the slave cylinders or got spirited away by fairies, but I do know
that brake fluid soaks up water like a sponge. A coating of brake fluid just
acts like a coating of salt water. Since the brake hose was collapsed, it
meant the brake cylinders were essentially full of air and water. Bad Bad
Bad.
I cut open one of my discarded brake hoses and found that the aperature is
surprisingly small. It doesn't take much to make one fail from
arteriosclerosis.
While I've got the back of the car jacked up, I was pondering the idea of
putting in lower springs to lower the ride height. Does anybody know if I
can simply install springs from a pre-1974 model year Midget to accomplish
this? How was the ride-height-increase for the rubber bumpered cars
accomplished?
Also, Re: the brake failure switch. Turns out that post-1976 Midgets use a
*manually reset* brake failure switch that was designed into TR6s, but with
a different housing. You can bleed the brakes all you want per the Haynes
manual, but that light ain't gonna go out. A lister has written to me that
the 1976-1979 Midget housings he's seen are made of brass, not cast iron.
This makes me wonder if the Moss repair kit for the brake failure switch
piston on page 96 isn't for the older piston, since the similar part for a
TR6 has a different number.
Tellingly, the TR6 catalog references a brass housing, but notes that it
is superceeded by a cast iron housing. (The TR6 catalog also has a note
about manually resetting the switch.) I think this must be the case with the
*newer* Midget housings. Original brass, replacements in cast iron, although
the pre-1976 are *still* brass.
The Moss catalog probably needs a note about this. Hint Hint, Moss Guy, if
you're reading this.
Cheers,
Rick in MD
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