Last month at the IPD Garage Sale I bought a complete set of vented rotors, calipers, and pads for the front brakes on my 1978 242. After swapping this new equipment onto the car, which badly needed it, I noticed that the brake failure light was coming on. After several bleeding sequences using the Motive Power Bleeder there was no change.  The car was driven for quite a while with a spongy, yet functional brake pedal.  Since the brakes were still working fine, I was convinced that their was still air in the system, and that it would work itself out over time through successive brake bleedings.  Despite several further bleedings, the problem remained.

Two days ago, when I went to bleed the brakes on more time, I noticed that the rear passenger’s caliper had started to leak out of one of the piston seals.  “Ah ha,” I thought, “this must have been the cause all along.”  I ordered a new caliper from a local CarQuest ($44), installed it, and… still got the same spongy brake pedal and brake failure light.  IPD sells their rebuilt calipers – same Ate brand – for $105.50 (less $27.50 core) = $78.00 and YOU have to pay shipping to return the core.

After consultation with some of the gurus on turbobricks, it seemed likely that the brake master cylinder had failed.  I ordered a remanufactured one from local parts supplier Baxter Auto Parts for $45, including core charge.  IPD sells this part for $132.92 (no core charge).  Well, the master cylinder fixed the problem, and I now have a nice firm brake pedal and no brake failure warning light randomly turning on and off.  Hooray!

Although I missed it last year due to a pre-planned vacation, I was able to make it to the IPD Garage Sale this year.  You can check out my photos (some bad, some good, but all of them are there) in the Garage Sale 2009 Gallery.  The weather was beautiful, about 80F, warm and sunny.  I got a bit of a sunburn on my forearms (ow!) because I was constantly taking pictures.

The car show of course was amazing, with a great turnout and some truly unique vehicles.  The garage sale side of things was great too.  As many of you know, you can order your parts directly from IPD that day and pick them up (or have them shipped for free).  Anything you order at the garage sale is 10% off as well.  So, from IPD I ordered front brake calipers, rotors, pads, brake fluid, and power brake bleeder so that I can fix / upgrade the brakes on the yellow 242.  The front calipers both have stuck pistons, and the rotors are warped.  The rear brakes seem fine however.

At the swap meet, I bought a GT front air damn (excellent condition), a GT fog light switch, a set of new 242 rubber window scrapers, and a complete set of 740/760 greenbooks, covering 1982-1988.  There was some great stuff for sale there, such as a complete set of five Eiker wheels (with tires), many different motors, and several whole cars.  I also picked up a relatively rare 1975 240 greenbook.

It will be a while before I get all these scanned.  Right now I am working on getting the 140 greenbooks scanned, and doing a higher quality re-scan of the 240 greenbooks, as well as the inclusion of several greenbooks that I hadn’t scanned before.  Once I get the 140 and 240 books up, the 740/760 books will be next.  You can check out the first 140 book (1974).