Aiberdonian

That's good information but those diagrams show the spring pushing down on the cross bar - what is the correct way ? When I reassembled my brake shoes I couldn't get the drum back on because the tang on the spring was resting against a collar on the reverse side of the brake shoe spring pin which meant the shoes were being held apart by the thickness of the spring. I bent the spring so that it rested on the pin rather than the collar and managed to get the drum back on only to find that the brake cable has stiffened up to the extent that it no longer moves easily, I think it may have frayed inside the outer casing. Here we go again !

HOLD IT - I'm wrong! I raked out an old backplate and shoes to try the hand brake mechanism and found that your initial set up with the spring pushing upwards on the cross shaft is correct. If you look at this photo you can see that I modified the brake shoe with a bolt and collar to prevent the cross shaft from being pushed off the pin on the shoe. I then removed the spring and turned it round to correct position and when replacing to back plate discovered that the spring was fouling the boot on the wheel cylinder which explains why I modified it in the first place, I have now bent the spring a little to clear the boot and it seems OK now. As far as the anchor pin is concerned the brake shoes fit directly to the pin followed by double spring (thackery) washer X634 then plain washer X566 before fitting the circlip 7191. X 634 is 1 5/16" OD x 7/8" ID x 1/2" non compressed X 566 is 1 1/4" OD x 7/8" ID x 0.062" thick Fitting the circlip is a real PITA as the spring needs to be fully compressed before the clip can be fitted. I made a tool from a piece of thin section tube with 1" ID as below Damn I've loaded it twice, however by placing this against the plain washer with tags at 12 and 6 o'clock and using a G Clamp you can compress the spring and get the circlip started in the slot and then tapped down to meet the top tag as below Slacken clamp and remove before tapping the clip fully home.

Fired up the wood burner in the workshop this morning, discovered the trolley jack low on oil, topped it up and removed the wheel and drum from the Gloria to find that the spring does act upon the cross shaft. It actually pushes down on the shaft as above, I couldn't see where the tang locates and I was not about to dismantle it to find out but you should be able to figure it out as you assemble it to the brake shoe. I had to use my steam driven phone as my camera has decided it has had enough and the screen has gone blank and if you have read my post about my sympathetic restoration of my Gloria in this section you will already know that modern technology and I don't get on very well. Which model of Gloria are you restoring ?

I found my spare handbrake mechanism and spring today but I still can't remember how it is assembled, it was 2006 when I did the rear brakes before finding the ash frame was in need of repair and was another 10 years before I found the time needed to get it done. It looks as though the temperature is going up a bit at the weekend, I'll take a wheel and brake drum off and let you know. The old fingers don't like the cold these days.

Try-umph, It has been a while since I did the rear brakes on my Gloria and I can't really remember where that spring fits but it is there to pull against the hand brake cable which connects to the slot on the lower arm so it must push against the lower arm just above the slot . It certainly does not fit against the cross arm which pushes against the shoes. I would offer to take a look at mine but it is - 8 deg C at the moment and does not look like rising above zero for a few days.

I'm still following this thread and must say how much I admire your skill and patience in making such beautiful things like these taps. Keep up the good work.

Wishing all at MOM a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. It's blowing a gale out there I hope Santa stays on course!!

Jack, I bought mine from the Pre 1940 Triumph Motor Club, you have to be a member before you can buy spares but they do have quite a lot of re-manufactured parts available. They are quite expensive but are good quality. Richard.

Very sad news indeed RIP Norm.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone. Still above the daisies, recovery from storm Arwen is ongoing.

Some really nice and interesting machines. So what do you do with an old Lister D that's lying in the shed - build it in to a motorbike of course, that is brilliant!

Bit late to the party this year but a Happy New Year to everyone.

Merry Christmas to all on MOM

Survived last night with no drama, just a bit hard on the rum and tobacco. Have arranged tele-handler and retired professional wood cutter from up the road to come and remove tree from workshop next week but will wait until Monday to see which day will be the best weatherwise.

Sitting here with the tin hat on listening to the wind howling through what's left of our trees It's coming from the south this time but no guarantee the trees will fall northwards.

Aye, I can't even offer you accommodation as my trailer tent got squashed as well!! The quantity is one thing but they are so closely packed that access is limited and we're stuck for anywhere to pile up the brushwood now as all our tracks through the trees and dumping areas are gone. Quite a few leaning trees and there's nowhere to run when the roots fall back, we'll leave this one to the younger guys with big machines who'll leave it a right mess probably.

Was talking to a woman in her 80's who remembers the 1953 gales and she thought Friday night was even worse, certainly the scariest I've encountered with trees cracking and thumping as they hit the ground and the house. Here's the one on the workshop Haven't heard back from the insurance yet but they'll have kittens when they realise it's an asbestos roof. Can't get in to the forest for a decent photo but you can see all roots in the air. Certainly more than one old pensioner and his 18" chainsaw can cope with but my sister who owns the forest is considering sharing the cost of a monster chipper to cope with the brushwood.

If yo fancy a run up to Aberdeenshire you can help me with this lot! I've got another through the roof of the workshop but thankfully not above the Gloria. Another one came down on the greenhouse and took out the electricity cables to the house which I reported on Saturday. Whole area lost power at 5.40 PM on Friday and they switched it back on tonight at 5.30 PM leaving me with a live cable lying in the garden. Managed to find a crew working down the road and explained the situation so four trucks and five guys appeared about 6.00 PM and cables and power restored at 7.00 PM. Total devastation in the forest at the back with hardly a tree left standing, definitely a job for the professionals.

Awe, come on - puppy photos shouldn't be allowed! She is lovely. My old boy turned 16 last month and I'm not sure what i'll do when he finally goes.

I'll have the Bentley - always fancied one. I too had a Vitesse 6 1600 and always thought it was a much sweeter and better revving engine than the later 2000 or 2500.

Was that converted from a 4 seat tourer? Reminds me of the car I learned to drive in when I was about ten years old, my father swapped a trailer for a 1935 Austin Seven Ruby saloon that he thought would help my older sister and brother to learn the basics in but my sister wasn't interested and my brother learnt on a tractor while helping out on a farm. He cut off the back of the car from the doors back and closed it off behind the front seats to make a cab and made a pick up platform supported from the rear bumper brackets. He used to cut firewood on a huge bench saw driven by a belt from a Bamford SD1 stationary engine and I transported the logs round to a log store at the back door. I certainly learned clutch control on that old car, it was all or nothing. Can't find any old photos of it at the moment.

That looks good, I know it's been cold lately but do you know something about the long range forecast that you're not telling us?

Had the 90 for seven years now and this morning was the first time there's been enough snow to try it out. Set off up the road to collect my butcher order from village 4 miles away in the Grand Vitara to find a car stuck in drifting snow, turned around to go down the road and around the corner is an abandoned car stuck in more drifting snow. Went back and fired up the 90 complete with snow shovel and a chain thinking I might be able to help the car up the road but by the time I got there he had managed to get out and turned round, the 90 plowed through the drifts - about 1 1/2 to 2 feet deep and I collected my order. Coming back down the road I find a guy in a Citreon bellied in the same drifting snow, 'I thought I would follow the tracks he says' - bit of a difference between a Citreon and a 90 as far as ground clearance is concerned. I turned and reversed back to try and pull him through but his wheels weren't touching the ground and I was damned if I was going to shovel away all the snow to give his car clearance. So I am now stuck with him up the road from the house and the abandoned car down the road and no way home until I remembered the farm up the back has a track around to another road that I might get to. After a six mile detour finally got on to this track, diff lock engaged, second gear and it just sailed up the fairly steep slope through more drifting snow until I was back on our road between the two stuck cars. Even with the best 4 x 4 it does you no good if some muppet is stuck in snow and blocking the road.

I fitted a 200 TDI to mine and it's even worse for warming up but good news is that the cab heater is working. I don't know if it was because the digital display on the controller only goes down to minus 9 and it wasn't able to compare the ambient temperature with the set temperature or if something else upset it. More investigation is required because it needs to work at lesser temperatures.

Cold isn't the word for it - minus 15 C this morning and the cab heater in the 90 refused to fire up, it was a cold run for the paper today. I treated my old Husky to a new bar and chain last year and the difference was amazing, you don't really notice how the performance slowly deteriorates.