The other night I was working on the brake system. I was able test fit the smaller MC with excellent results. Then it was time to fit fluid feed lines. HMM. The new MC has a much larger diameter seal than the factory feed lines would take. So the MC came out of the car to get a better look.

It turns out that I was able to use a VW beetle (early bug) MC feed line grommet and it fit snugly inside the existing VW Corrado MC grommet. REally. Perfect fit. They even had a rubber locating ring/detent in the exact same place. Right now this is the best solution I have. The only fluid pressure here is about 24" of gravity fed head height. Let's see where this goes.





Once the feed lines were attached to the MC I slide the new body grommets in place and then fished the lines through the body. This is not an easy one-man task. I wish I had extra hands and log arms for this one. Eventually the MC was in place.

The next step was modifying the pressure lines. The front PS was the most difficult since it normally crosses over to the DS with a banjo bolt. I did an S bend in the line to fit it to the PS front of the MC. The line looks crooked because I unbent and rebent and reshaped and finally got it straight in the MC. I did use my hose-bending pliers but there is only so much you can do. At least its not kinked or cracked. I expect I will be buying another line at some point and fixing this.




Since the feed lines were mounted in the body I had to connect the reservoir to them. I just cleaned up the original one and screwed it to the body. All good here.




Of course, what is a reservoir when its dry? I had to fix that. First step is to open a new bottle of fluid. I am using cheap fluid at first. This is to flush the brake system of any contaminants.




Once the fluid was in I opened a few bleeders and connected a borrowed Motive Power bleeder. 10psi on the pump and fluid was really moving. The catch can showed some gross crap coming from the calipers. Basically old fluid that was left over from the PO's 930 braking experience. I found some ATE blue and brown, maybe some gold and eventually clean clear fluid. Sweet!

If you have fluid you might as well have some pads. I dug out my boxes of Ferodo magic pads. I have this same compound on my targa. Great initial bite, excellent torque and friction characteristics and really good temperature resistance. And they last forever without scorching rotors. Huge Fan of Ferodo.



ONce the pads were in place I started bleeding and actuating the pistons. Thats when the first leaks started. It really helps if you go back through the braking system and make sure all the lines are tight. Especially the hardline to flex line connection through the sping clip at the struts. Yeah, They were finger tight. Easy fix with 11 and 15mm flare wrenches.

So.. The car has brakes. The pedal feel is firm but good. Getting closer.

After brakes I moved on to making the car have forward progress. This meant connecting the clutch cable. I have previously run a 911/01 transmission in front of a 3.0. The challenge here is the lower oil cross-over line. The 70/71 cars use a soft crossover line that goes over the transmission. The 72 uses a hard line that goes underneath the transmission. This means the oil line occupies the exact space where the rear cable stop mounts into the bell housing. A little lever action to reposition the oil line combined with slight shaving of the split collar cable support and that means....

The clutch cable is installed. A few wrench turns to set clutch tension and things are moving smoothly.




I really want to drive the car around the block. I know it doesn't have lights or several other things but no critical parts are missing. Well, except for a seat. I don't want to pull a Hightower (Bubba Smith in "Police Academy") and sit on the floor or milk crate. I am tall enough to almost sit in the back seat but that would be quite uncomfortable. So I just bolted the DS seat in place.

These are GTS Classics Rallye ST seats. I have had them since they were first introduced and this is the second car they are in. I couldn't part with them when I sold the last one.



This is the first time I have sat in Minne with a bolted seat, with steering wheel, with shifter, with working foot controls. Amazing that I felt right at home.



So what's left before a maiden voyage? Axles. Rebuilding CV axles. That's next!