I am working on a 1954 Mark VII. It is a beautiful car last registered in 1993. I expected to need to redo the brake hydraulics, but am finding some unwelcome "reengineering" of the system. The brake booster has been bypassed (not so bad), the pistons of the front wheel cylinders have been modified, and one rear brake is missing an adjuster piece.

The pads look as if they were never used and I'm worried that the brake cylinder modification is not actually workable. Also it appears that the backing plates have been rotated so that the trailing shoe brakes are now leading shoe brakes.

Would anyone have an old Mark VII or VIII parts car with front wheel cylinders? I have rebuilt my cylinders which are in fine shape if I just had the pistons. I'd also sure love to find one brake adjuster "link". It is labeled as a link in the workshop manual.

Any thoughts about the rotated back plates? I suspect that the brakes would still work as the XKs had leading shoe brakes.

Thanks for your thoughts.