I'm replacing the front to rear pipes and changing all the wheel cylinders, now problem number one:

Why won't the front drum come off? What have I missed? Got the driveshaft off and the handbrake is off, do I need to turn an adjuster on the back plate? I have read a couple of manuals and neither seem to agree/make sense.

Yeh, you'll want to back the snail adjusters off a bit - there may be a slight lip on the drum, which is "catching" on the shoes, even if it can be turned easily side-to-side.

Right Cheers. To be honest I haven't tried that hard, it keeps raining. Its a bummer they need messing with really, because it had new drums and shoes last year.

...and now it's the cylinders?

Gotta admit, whenever I go "in there", the whole flamin' lot gets done. I'd rather spend a couple more quid on parts than do the work twice.

Which is why I've had a big box turn up from GSF today with bits for Ellie's Pug. Rear Shoes. Cylinders. Wheel bearings. Handbrake cables.

Do it once, do it properly...

It may have been done but there's no guarantee some girl or other won't come along in a temper tantrum and inadvertently pop a wheel cylinder <whistles>

Eh? How...?

erm

I stamped on the pedal....

a little bit

Yeh. Just a "little" bit... <grin>

Shouldn't blow a cylinder, though, no matter how hard. They're designed to withstand the living carp being stamped out of 'em on an emergency stop, after all.

Well does this go back to what you were saying about possible wrong fluid syndrome, might that have weakened it? I'm still not sure what was up, but basically in the time I've had it there was no fluid coming through to the back, I lost so much patience trying to bleed them that I took the bleed nipple out completely and nothing happened, not a dribble.

I've taken the front to rear pipes off and there are no kinks, plus I've changed the master cylinder because there was a leak there on purchase. The seals that have come out so far have no green marks and apart from a couple of mangled ends and one that wouldn't come out of the union on the rear, nothing seems to be wrong...