Rear brakes reconditioned along with rear suspension and drive train components
Front brakes reconditioned after rolling chassis was brought home from shop
Rear Brakes
The rear drum brakes where reconditioned first as part of the rear suspension and rear drive-train effort since they
are an integral part of those two systems. You must have the rear brakes on before you can add the rear drive hubs.
Because of this critical path, they were done first.
Reconditioning these involved first disassembling then cleaning all parts, painting the brake plate flat black and the drum silver.
I was fortunate that the shoes and cylinders had been recently replaced when mom had some work done. Otherwise those would have been candidates for replacement.
The only thing I needed to replace was the dust excluder assembly that goes around the handbrake lever.
Reassembling all shiny, clean and new parts was very straight forward and done according to the Bentley Workshop Manual. In doing this work, don't forget to add the grease to where the brake shoes rubs against the plate and where the outer spring plate slides against the plate when the handbrake lever is engaged!!
Front Brakes
Rebuilding the front brakes seems to be the Triumph equivalent of running with scissors.
According to the Moss catalog we are not supposed to separate the two halves of the front brake caliper for any reason and leave this to a professional.
The reason given for this is safety, and that no one seems to know the proper torque for the four bolts that hold the two halves together.
Although I certainly agree with the first reason, the second sounded questionable to me, at best, so I set about finding someone with experience in rebuilding front calipers and had them tell me the torque they used.
Armed with this information, I set about reconditioning the front brakes myself, completely sober about the safety issues involved.
First thing done was to remove the short brakes lines from the calipers and insert an air nozzle. Using about 100 psi I managed to get both pistons free of the caliper.
Upon inspection, I decided to replace the pistons, dust covers and pistons seals.
The pistons were set aside and the caliper placed in a vise so that the four bolts holding the two caliper halves together could be loosened. Once the caliper halves were separated, the piston seals were removed from the cylinder and the o-ring used between the two halves was put away for safe keeping.
Each half was cleaned and made ready for painting. I used steel wool and soft Dremel tool attachments to clean the rust and scale from the inside of the cylinder itself.
Once the cylinders were cleaned, I masked the mating surfaces, plugged the fluid holes, partially inserted the old pistons into the cylinders and painted each half silver.
With the caliper halves freshly cleaned and painted, it was time to rebuild them. I coated the insides of each cylinder with fresh brake fluid and inserted the piston seal.
Next step was to affix the dust cover to the slot in the cylinder and then add the piston, driving it home by gently tapping on a piece of hardwood laid across the surface of the piston.
This was repeated for the other side. Once the pistons were in place, the two halves were joined back together, making sure to add the o-ring between them.
The bolts were torqued down (70 lb. inside bolts, 45 lb. outside bolts) and new brake pads and shims where added into place. The original retaining pins and clips were reused after being cleaned.
Next step was to test the caliper by reinserting the air nozzle and filling the channels with air to check for air leaks and equal piston movement.
This was an excellent test, as it caught a mistake I made in not adding a piston seal to one side. As would be expected, that piston moved a lot more freely than the one that had the seal in place.
The content of this page in intended only to communicate my own thoughts, actions and opinions while restoring my own automobile.
It is not meant to serve as instruction for others to do maintenance on their vehicles.
