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[Healeys] Wolesley 1500 brake bleed saga and question (No Healey

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Subject: [Healeys] Wolesley 1500 brake bleed saga and question (No Healey
From: Bob Johnson <bjsbj8@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 16:26:07 -0400
Does anyone here have knowledge about the Wolesley 1500? I have met a
couple who have just recently bought a 1961 1500. They drove or from
Michigan to NC with practically no brakes (Yikes!) I spent about 5
hours yesterday trying, with their help, to bleed the brakes. At the
end of the day we were no better off than when we started. There is no
evidence of leakage anywhere.  We were doing this with three people
because the master reservoir is very small. One person monitored the
reservoir, one at the pedal and most of the time I was under the car.
This is where the story begins(this will sound like Laurel and Hardy):
Working at left rear, after about three open, down, close, up cycles
fluid was looking good. One more cycle and what?? No fluid at all.  He
wasn't monitoring the reservoir too well. Start again. This time we
got good clear fluid without running out. Moved to right rear. Things
went well here as well (he was really paying attention to the
reservoir now and using an eye dropper to get the fluid in.) Tested
and had a good firm half pedal. Moved to front left things went well,
but pedal no better. This one was slightly rounded off but using a six
sided socket overcame any problems. (Glad I took my tools by now.)
Front right was too rounded to use any kind of wrench. This was first
and very optomistic trip to parts store. They could not find a listing
for a bleeder for a Wolesley and suggested that if we brought one in,
maybe they could match it. Back to the house and removed bleeder with
vise grips. This is where I made a big mistake. I forgot to put a
piece of plastic under the cap to hold the fluid in. Anyway, back to
parts store where very nice young man spent 15 minutes before he found
a bleeder with the right length and thread. Went back to the car and
saw that the fluid had drained from the res. Remembered now that I
should have put a piece of film under the cap. While the fluid was
down, I inserted a pice of plastic under the cap and replaced all of
the bleeders and started all over again for the third time. He decided
that by now I had spent too much time under the car and told me that
he wanted to get under the car. Well, it is his car so OK. After him
calling out "down and then immediately "up" I mentioned that he surely
was getting the bleeder closed more quickly than I had been able to
do. He said, "Oh, am I supposed to close the bleeder before I say up?"
His wife and I both said yes. So now we start for the 4th time. Then
he says that he can't tell when he has the bleeder open and when he
has it closed. I don't know how that could be a mystery. Then he
decided that he had spent enough time at that wheel and besides, he
said he couldn't tell if the fluid was clear or not, but felt that it
should be by then, so he simply moved on to the next wheel, etc. I had
given up by this time. Needless to say. we had only a pedal that was
not too firm and went almost to the floor when he decided that "we"
didn't know what we were doing. And we gave up for the day.

Does anyone know of any reason that this is not a straight forward
process for capable people, or does anyone know of a more foolproof
way to do this? Or is there any secret that is specific to a Wolesley?

Bob Johnson
BJ8
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