Little Red Corvette - Too Damn Cold

  

We're in a stretch of some of the most brutal weather I've ever experienced in my life and it's ironic that, apparently, the country in general is in the midst of one of the mildest winters in recorded weather history. Really? You'd never know it up here on the shores of The Great Lake Erie. It was 7 below outside yesterday morning so that meant it was not even 10 degrees inside my garage. I know it's really cold out when the snow on the snow blower doesn't melt over night when it's in the garage.  

 

 

With the day off yesterday for President's Day, the wife working and thus being stuck at home with our teenage boys who are more than happy to do literally nothing all day, I got ambitious and attempted to get at the brake line/proportionating valve part of my endless "brake job" on the '77. I broke the line last weekend attempting to secure the new cross over line to the brass block behind this flange. If you've kept up with the scintillating details of my winter of '15 exploits, the old cross over line is what failed causing the rear brakes not to function. In replacing that line, everything that could go wrong has gone wrong.

 

 

What's in my way now, in addition to the soul crushing cold, is that big, frozen nut on the proportionating valve. The proportionating valve "proportions" hydraulic fluid to the brakes based load, weight and demand. Most of the braking force goes to the front so the back brakes are little more than secondary but still, with no fluid in the rear brakes, all of the braking has had to have been done by the front. This big nut hasn't been tampered with in almost 40 years and is not happy about my wanting it gone now.

 

 

Of course it wouldn't budge despite a week of soaking in PB Blaster and I rounded it off with my 9/16th box wrench right from the get go. Why these fittings are made of aluminum is beyond me and the cold weather only adds to the misery. Getting that bolt off, with my massive vice grips and then getting the brake line out will have to wait until it hits maybe 30 degrees this weekend. Wish me luck.