a photoblog of what i did today.....

[glatt]

I could try to swing a hammer back there and pound the bolt in, but that seemed to lack elegance. So I decided to pull the bolt in instead.

I stacked a bunch of oversized washers and put one of the new lug nut on backwards so the flat part of the lug nut would rub against the washers. This worked great at first, but when I started to apply actual force to the wrench, the whole wheel hub started to rotate.


So I got a long pry bar and slipped it between two wheel stud bolts and against the ground. That locked the wheel hub in place so I could apply some force and pull that new wheel stud bolt into place. It worked beautifully.


Here's the first new stud snug in the hole! The second one was even easier because I knew the routine now.


And I cleaned and sanded the brake rotor a little to get rid of some of the glazing on the surface. There were no deep ridges at all, so I could reuse it without resurfacing it.


Oh, hey. This is a good picture where you can see the piston in the background. It's that silvery looking cup with the rubber gasket surrounding it. It's sticking out pretty far. As the old pads had worn down, it pushed out farther and farther. I'll need to compress it to make room for the new thicker pads to be installed.

[glatt]

Now I put the brake mount assembly back. This thing must have a real name, but I don't know it off the top of my head. It just holds all the brake stuff in place. It was hard to get this off, so I figured I should put it back on just as tightly. So I pounded the handle of the wrench with a mallet a little to snug up those bolts. If I had a torque wrench, I could put it back to the exact specs, but I don't, so I do my best. It's not falling off.


Under the hood is the master brake cylinder. You can see the fluid level is a little low. That's because all that fluid is down in the caliper piston that got extended so far when the brake pads wore down.

I use a clamp to squeeze the piston back into place.

And now look at the fluid level. It's higher. We had been getting an intermittent brake warning light when we went up and down hills, and I think that was caused by the low levels of fluid in master cylinder dipping below the sensor there. Now that the level is higher, I expect that light won't be coming on again.

[glatt]

We're almost there!

I took the shims off the old worn pads and I cleaned them with brake cleaner. Then I lined up the new pads and shims and lubricated them with special high temperature brake lube. This keeps the brakes from squealing. You DON'T lubricate the braking surface of the pads, you lubricate the rear of the pads. Then if they move around a millimeter or two against the caliper when braking, they won't make any noise. So spread that grease around with my finger and then stack the shims onto the backs of the brake pads.


Put the pads in place in the brake mount assembly. There are some clips at the contact points that hold them snugly in place.

Now you can take the hanging caliper part off the coat hanger and put that over the pads and bolt that on. Make sure to remove the coat hanger from the springs. That will make a racket if you drive around with that up in there.

And put the wheel on.


Pump the pedal a few times, and go for a test drive! It stops perfectly and no squeals or anything. Doesn't pull to either side when I brake and no pulsation or vibrations or anything.

[glatt]

This whole project cost around $60 for the new pads, the brake cleaner, the brake pad lube, the two new wheel studs, and two lug nuts.

The shop would have charged about $300 for the brake job and probably $50-$100 for the wheel studs. But they would have resurfaced the rotors on a lathe, so they would have done a little more than I did.

It was more of a pain in the ass than I was expecting with the wrong parts and the broken bolts, but it went ok. Normally it would be easier than this.

[Lamplighter]

I'm very impressed... Good job !