No Stopping Now!

I was pretty sure that the brakes were not going to work. Even though the car had its brakes worked on before all work stopped on it thirty years ago, hydraulic brakes don’t hold up if left to sit. Brake fluid is hygroscopic, which means it absorbs water. That could mean that there was more water than fluid in the brake lines which would cause serious rust in the master and wheel cylinders. Still, there was no harm in adding fluid and seeing what happens.

The brake booster

I opened the brake fluid reservoir and loaded it up. My wife, Nita, was my brake pedal pusher as I worked my way through all the bleeder ports. There were two on the brake booster and, as Nita pushed on the pedal, clean brake fluid squirted out. Awesome! This meant the master cylinder wasn’t totally shot. It also meant that the brake booster might be in better shape than I feared.

My next task was to bleed the wheel cylinders. There are two cylinders on each of the front wheel and one cylinder on each of the back wheels. When I opened the bleeder port on the front wheels water poured out. Not good! Once the water was out, no amount of brake pumping produced fluid. Either the master cylinder was more screwed up than I originally thought or the soft brake lines were swollen shut. I suspect it’s the clogged brake lines.

I tried bleeding the rear brakes. Nothing happened. No water or fluid. For sure the front wheel cylinders will be pitted with rust, maybe too pitted to hone. The rear wheel cylinders are likely to be bad, too. The car will need a complete re-do of the brakes. The car will go, but it won’t stop, and stopping is kind of important! I went online and checked the cost of getting all new wheel cylinders, master cylinder, and soft brake lines and the cost totals up to about $1000 not including rebuilding the brake booster. That’s really not too terrible and it would be great to have all that stuff be brand new. I don’t want to be worrying about the brakes once I get it on the road. I have to save up for the brake parts so this part of the project will have to wait awhile. I can drive it without the brake booster so I can wait even longer to rebuild that.

In the meantime I discovered that the emergency brake works just fine. It’s a mechanical cable brake, as most e-brakes are, and it was in really good shape. So I can stop after all! I just have to remember to keep my hand on the e-brake handle at all times so I don't panic and try to use the brake pedal. I am only going to use this when I am pulling it out of the barn or putting it back. No driving on the road like this!

Up until this moment the 190SL was being kept in a friend’s garage. One of the conditions for bringing it home was that I could pull it in and out of the barn easily when the space was needed for other uses. With the e-brake working I figured that was good enough. I hitched up my trailer and brought the car home. It is much more convenient to work on it here. I can go out any time and put in an hour or two on it and since I got it home I really have been able to put more time into it. The other day I went out and polished the two hubcaps I already have and the trim rings. They aren't in perfect shape but they look a lot better than they did when I picked up the car. I need to keep an eye out for two more hubcaps.