Becky's looked slightly better at 7 years old when I first stripped them around 5 years ago. The biggest problem was caused by the wear lip inside the drum, even with the cables backed right off it was still a major struggle. We got an advisory on the back axle this year so maybe it'll be a fail at the next MOT. If so I'll be doing a rear brake overhaul when the new axle goes in and she's well overdue for a couple of drums.Been there I hope you can get the drums off without breaking something not as easy as you might think our 7 years ago
The lip is the issue, backing off the hand brake won't make any difference, its the auto adjusters that keep the shoes the distance they are, its the lack of a small cover to rack the adjuster either way that's the issue that you'd typically find on a Japanese car.Becky's looked slightly better at 7 years old when I first stripped them around 5 years ago. The biggest problem was caused by the wear lip inside the drum, even with the cables backed right off it was still a major struggle. We got an advisory on the back axle this year so maybe it'll be a fail at the next MOT. If so I'll be doing a rear brake overhaul when the new axle goes in and she's well overdue for a couple of drums.
Earth lead gearbox to chassis?It's been a while and more work has been done.
The brakes have been sorted, the squeaky noise was just a strip of paint from the drum scraping along the back plate! Stripped and cleaned as they were very dirty inside.The brakes seem a lot better now.
The car has done about 800 miles since fitting the new timing belt, oil & filters, water pump etc and is still sounding good...
A wet passenger footwell was a split rear washer pipe that was a PITA to fix as its ribbed.
Then I get a call it won't start, the AA got it jumped and home but I found this...
View attachment 437557
I repaired it with a length of 25mm multicore flex,
View attachment 437556
All good now
This is always a controversial subject, but many folks consider that using a flushing oil can do more harm than good. From memory Fiat don't recommend using one (and IIRC doing so invalidates any Fiat warranty, not that that's an issue here).I would definitely consider running flushing oil through that.
Yup, even way back in the eighties we were taught to flush engines with just fresh oil, then put new filters in and renew oil, never with a propiatryengine flush …only ever remember doing it on the 1800 and 2000 engines from 131 and 132 to the tipos and coupesThis is always a controversial subject, but many folks consider that using a flushing oil can do more harm than good. From memory Fiat don't recommend using one (and IIRC doing so invalidates any Fiat warranty, not that that's an issue here).
Another option is to just do another oil & filter change in 1000 miles or so - this is what I would do in this case.