1982 Lada Niva

Last few days i've been working very hard to clean the big garage, but mid day today my parts that i ordered from russia come in, the biggest pieces are the two back interior plastics, they cover the rear quarters from the doors to the trunk, this got me motivated so i went out and bought seat covers so i can finish the interior. In 7 hours i managed to redo the front seat mounts install the covers and mount the back seat. Other things that come in was the chrome locking strip for the front and back windscreen, i drove it outside in the sun so the rubber is softer and install them. Last thing i did is take it for a drive to test it before the safety inspection so i can register it and the brakes fail, drivers side rear cylinder blow out. Nothing too scary the brakes have two circuits i still had brakes but at the very bottom. This will set my schedule back the rear drums are aluminium and they are very stuck i tried to remove them before so i'm in for a fight.
IMG_20190823_183606.jpgIMG_20190823_183628.jpgIMG_20190823_183635.jpgIMG_20190822_103902.jpgIMG_20190822_110527.jpg
 
Yesterday's debacle with losing the brakes on the little niva made me stop cleaning the garage and focus on getting them fixed, so i started and ended with the drivers side rear that was leaking, i tried absolutely everything, i used heat, penetrating oil i used the threaded holes to the point where the bolts snapped even made a very big puller and only managed to bent the brake drum, having bent is and it still wasn't coming off i fired up my grinder and cut a circle on the inside and then a slot in the middle so i can use a screwdriver to spread it and then still took a chisel and a sledge hammer the get it of axle. This is why i hate drum brakes especially aluminium drums. In real world after two hard braking they overheat and are useless for the next 10 km till they cool down and that is not acceptable by me. So i'll be doing a disk brake conversion from scratch, i'll need to buy parts first.
IMG_20190824_143142_1.jpgIMG_20190823_203937.jpgIMG_20190824_143154.jpg
 
yep, drum brakes suck. Did you figure out why they wouldn't come off? I once had a multi-hour fight with a set because the drums were worn to the point that the unworn outer ridge wouldn't clear the shoes. I'm sure disks will be a vast improvement. What about the parking brake though?
 
The aluminium drum had welded itself to the axle flange, the drum itself wasn't worn out, the brake shows also have lots of life in them and they may be the factory ones, the rear brakes have not worked on this car probably the last 20 years because someone had installed a nail in the metal brake line that acted like a plug i'll attach a picture.
IMG_20190612_204540_1_50.jpg
 
Was that the desperate mans way for keeping his car rolling by stopping a leaking line to keep his family fed or was that some kinda sabotage??? Wow!
 
Latinrascalrg1 said:
Was that the desperate mans way for keeping his car rolling by stopping a leaking line to keep his family fed or was that some kinda sabotage??? Wow!
Click to expand...

This Niva used to belong to the Macedonian government was bought at an government auction by the person i bought it from, the title still is in government's name, from the look of the brake pipes my thought is someone had install the nail to block the pipe from draining the entire brake system when he was doing repairs on back axle. When it still belong to the government.
 
Today the little niva got the oldes form of hydraulic lift ( bottle jack), i placed two heavy duty jack stands under the frame and lower it on them. I'll be dropping the entire rear suspension axle, springs, links everything is getting redone. But for today i only managed to get the little niva back together enough to drive it in and out of the garage so i can switch places between the Octavia and the Niva. And prepare it for surgery. I also found me couple of brake calipers from a Ford Scorpio to use in this brake conversion and bought me a good quality brake pads for them, they were expensive but i'm never buying cheap brake pads again, i don't want to visit the ditch again.
IMG_20190825_182223.jpgIMG_20190825_182236.jpgIMG_20190826_171326.jpg
 
The plan is to use 42mm rear calipers, if my math is right and the front 3 piston preside calipers are working right should be right on the money no balancing needed. If i get unbalanced i'll be changing the master cylinder or installing a brake proportioning valve.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top