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a mate of mine has just launched himself into the world of classic car ownership by purchasing a 1967 series 2 land rover, he knows zero about mechanics and looking after cars, so was guided by me and my bro. it didnt take long to point out the money saving over buying a tax excempt landrover compared to a later defender though!

with a bit of help he bought a really nice, fairly cheap shortwheel base, that will do everything he wants, its in nice, looked after condition, and the seller put a full years mot on it (last monday) and was kind enough to deliver it the 80 odd miles.

i went round yesterday to be met with a land rover piddling fuel out and with failed brakes 'welcome to classic cars' didnt go down to well!!!!

the fuel was easy, i bet it hadnt been brimmed with fuel for years, and the rubber filler neck was loose!

the brakes, on the other hand.....

at first they looked like a simple fix, i could see fluid dripping from a union, so tried to tighten it up, no dice,

i wobbled the pipe, and it just fell out of the female union!

when i stripped it, it became apparent why....


who ever had made the pipes had (i assume) used one of those cheap crap hand flaring tools that doesnt flare the pipe correctly, and as this was a two op flare it hadnt made a decent flare, id guess the vibrations had made the flare just crack of from around the pipe, it was there, just thinner than a sheet of gold leaf



it was an easy job to make a new pipe and bleed the brakes, but it really doesnt bear thinking about if this pipe had failed at anything more than walking pace!

just goes to show, a box fresh mot & and nearly new pipes dont mean a thing!

the seller of the landy was absolutly mortified when he was told, though in his defence the pipes where like this when he bought it

That's by far the worst brake pipe I have seen in a long time.

M

And that got an mot....

Shocking.. Report the test station to vosa....

Not best I have seen!! someone used abit of black 5mm piping to bridge the gap between the metal and the union

was on the mini forum was brill! haha best bodge ever

my smoke grey 62 deluxe had an accident circa 1970 coz of a garage jubilee clipping some brake flexy hose in place of a corroded brake pipe section


on heavy" panic" braking the brakes blew and subsequently a 9 mth pregnant woman was flattened against a wall and killed

the car survived but my dad was never the same afterwards,,

the police had the car for 3 weeks,and the garage was merely fined
some poor person lost thier life,as well as an unborn child

bodgery is the root of all mini failures..

brook shaw wrote:my smoke grey 62 deluxe had an accident circa 1970 coz of a garage jubilee clipping some brake flexy hose in place of a corroded brake pipe section


on heavy" panic" braking the brakes blew and subsequently a 9 mth pregnant woman was flattened against a wall and killed

the car survived but my dad was never the same afterwards,,

the police had the car for 3 weeks,and the garage was merely fined
some poor person lost thier life,as well as an unborn child

bodgery is the root of all mini failures..

oh, that is bad

the driver of the landy was lucky, he was going slow when the pedal went to the floor and was able to stop it on the handbrake.

the problem i have now of course, is that all the brake pipes look 'new' so i must assume that the same idiot made them. im going to swop them all and make them correctley - its an easy and quick job with the proper over centre flaring tool.

i never understand why people rush or bodge brakes, this is one of the reasons i have no truck with people who insist fiesta brakes are a good idea or promote grinding down metro calipers to clear 10" wheels - its alright until something goes wrong!

the mini still has the scars of a slightly twisted inner wing,but the mental scars are the most notable...funniest thing about it is,2 minutes before the brake pipe bodge crash,i was in the car,on way home from school.. then dropped off home ....no seat belts those days,,id have been a gonner and you guys wouldnt have had to put up with my drivel on here ...

nothing funny about that story Brook

I know this is not directly relevant, but its cases like the one related by Brooke that makes me suspect that exempting pre 1960 cars from the MOT is not a good idea at all. Surely all it can do is re introduce more examples of this sort of thing.

M

mk1 wrote:Surely all it can do is re introduce more examples of this sort of thing.

Not only that Mark - I've been hearing some very worrying tales of people building massively powerful cars (landrovers mainly for obvious reasons) out of a loads of different bits and ringing them with tax and (soon to be) MOT exempt logbooks. No inspections or official checks, just there own idea's on what a good build should involve.

Seems to me that the only reason you'd want to be MOT exempt is if you're doing something dodgy... we've heard here what could happen when a seemingly well fitted part fails. Some of these guys appear to be building frankenstein's monster!

I suppose one saving grace for us is that the mini world is extremely unlikely to see any of this nonsense!!

Couldn't agree more.

m

bpirie1000 wrote:And that got an mot....

Shocking.. Report the test station to vosa....

Whilst I am in no way condoning the way these pipes have been made it would have been very hard for a tester to spot, if there were no leaks and the brake performance was correct there's no way the tester cound have seen inside the union. Testers now have the ability to fail parts for being inappropriately modified, so hopefully if someone had used a rubber hose it would have been spotted.

Quite right, an MOT tester can only fail a brake pipe if it is damaged, corroded or leaking at the time of the test, but a brake pipe joined with rubber hose would have been spotted & failed 40 years ago when I used to do MOT's.

Those brake pipe flaring tools are utterly useless, I tried to use one once and gave up. I bought myself a nice vice mounted one which will do copper or steel pipes in a number of sizes and different flares. It's a pleasure to use. The cheap ones which are for sale everywhere should be banned in my opinion as brakes are far too safety critical to risk using something like that on them.

Austin Cooper wrote:Those brake pipe flaring tools are utterly useless, I tried to use one once and gave up. I bought myself a nice vice mounted one which will do copper or steel pipes in a number of sizes and different flares. It's a pleasure to use. The cheap ones which are for sale everywhere should be banned in my opinion as brakes are far too safety critical to risk using something like that on them.

i agree, i recently bought a new lever arm type after my old faithfull screw thread sykes one died (my grandad bought it in about 1970, so it had had a long life!)

the new one cost less than £100 quid, came with every set of dies ever needed (even though only the small ones are ever needed) and it does a beautiful job,

the garage who fitted the dodgy pipe to 814cwe also did the mot on it

funny thing is,,around this time the mot was tightened up,,and saw the majority of our much loved mk1 minis sent to the scrapyard

our local scrappies were turning away mini mk1 and wolseley 1500 in 1970/71
they had too many in the yards,,so sheffield was a town full of abandoned mk1 minis
the woods near our estate were absolutely littered with 59 and 60 minis,,we used to sit in them...the odd bit got raped off them but every now and again the council came and had em shifted...

wish i had a time machine

around this time there was a lovely 1967 f plate mk1 dumped in the woods with its documents in the car face down in a ravine.
i remember my mates dad taking the wheels off for his wifes car..,a 1966 almond green austin mini basic.

makes me sad thinking about it