Headlight Reburbishment and Rear Brakes

I have the week off before the long weekend in Ireland and top of the to-do list was to service the Westfield and refurbish the headlights.

The car service was minus an oil change as it was done when we fitted the flywheel and was going fairly straight forward until I go to the rear brakes.  From the outside of the car they looked slightly under used with a poorly defined rust band rather than a clear line where the pads bite into the disc.

On the inside the discs were almost completely rusty.  I removed the callipers and discs to give them a better inspection. The slide pins and pads were very difficult to remove and might be part of the problem. Once the pads were removed I pressed on the pedal and the pistons both moved out so no obvious problem with them although the inside piston did move slightly less than the outside. So unless it was the pads sticking on the sliders it must be down to the fact that the rear brakes as used so little or that the brakes need to be more biased to the rear.  I ordered some Mintex 1144 pads (from Hi-Spec as they are non-standard and have to be modified from MGB535M1144, although I now believe that standard MGB533M1144 pads will fit) and new discs for both sides - Escort mk4 solid fronts.

BEFORE

With the car now on axle stands at the rear I decided it was time to look at the Headlights.  I still think the Venoms are a good looking set of light and particularly like the DRLs and integrated indicators but the lacquer and chrome were now flaking off very badly.  I removed the bezel, slowly scrapped off all of the chrome and then sanded it lightly.


AFTER

The bezel was made of fairly flexible plastic so off I went to Halfords to find some suitable paint.  Eventually I selected black plastic bumper paint and also bought the preparation cleaner. The plastic lens both pushed out of the bezels, I masked off the LED ring to protect the chrome, applied the preparation fluid and then sprayed them.   Not quite as black as I wanted but substantially better than before.