Removing the brake lines

Ok, I had some time on Wednesday afternoon so decided to tackle some more of the mess on RattyT. So the first thing I needed to do was work out if I needed to move the brake booster. After talking to the certifier, I got the information about the lowest any part of the car can be and then looked under the car to see if it would comply. Doing a rough eye line, I believe it would be OK where it is. So at this stage I plan to just leave it where it is. One thing I do need to do is put a guard in front to protect the booster from stones and the such like.

So on with the days work ... cleaning up the mess.
Now since there is going to be welding going on, I though it best to get rid of the fuel tank. So it was a simple matter of first draining the tank, then unbolting it.

Got the jerry cans I had to capture the fuel.

One big bonus was that the previous owner had installed a fuel tap. So I was able to control the flow of fuel easily as I filled the jerry cans. It took much longer than I though it would, and of course I managed to spill fuel.

Finally got the tank off, I will need to investigate the options I have for changing the filler cap as its useless. I would like a motorcycle type lockable type.

So here is the mess I plan to tidy up, First the brakes and brake lines, then the wiring. But before I can do that I have to remove everything and start again.

As you can see the brake lines are random and all over the place, then they run on the underneath of the chassis which is illegal now, so I have to re-route them anyway. So since I have to do that I might as well use new tubing and route it how I want and tidy up the whole lot.

First some of the wiring needed to be removed, this main lead to the alternator was not in good condition and came apart as I removed it.

Another fix it job.

So on to the brakes, before I could remove the brake lines I have to get rid of the brake fluid. Now since the pedal box was removed it was hard work trying to pump the master cylinder. So I did it in reverse. I removed the tube on the brake master cylinder. This was then pointed into a catch tray, then with a piece of plactic tubing connected to the bleeder valve blow the brake fluid out. I did this for all 4 wheels (tubes). Now I have the lines clear I removed the master cylinder and emptied that.

Of course since this was my first time I made mistakes and a big mess. Next was the wiring that needed to be removed as It was routed over where the welding will be taking place. It was just a simple matter of un-threading it, and taking photos to make sure I remember where everything went.

Looks much better ... right ??
I can now get my head around what work I need to do... and the list just got longer again.

The next thing I needed to do was source the new brake parts, bundy tubing, connectors, tube cutter, tube bender, clips, oh and some vacuum tubing for the master cylinder. of course this took much longer than i expected and i spent 2 days after work running around tracking down the required parts.

Plan for the coming weekend is to tack in the peddle box, body mounts and get it to a point where I can take it to the engineer to do the final welding.