Last week I decided I would deal with the front right brake caliper that was sticking and accordingly went to my friend’s place to work on it. Since he lives about twenty kilometres from the cabin, I tried to use the brakes as little as possible so it wouldn’t stick on and because of the drive and that parsimony it wasn’t too hot when I arrived. The pads wear slightly all the time when you are driving until they have freedom of movement, so mine had worn where they were sticking.
I went inside my friend’s house to wait for his daughter to come from school, since she loves mechanic work, and before long her and I were removing the tire and examining the caliper. I have lots of brake pad, but when we took the caliper off and then forced its piston back with a C-clamp, it went in easily. In fact, it was even easy to move with a screwdriver against the rotor.
Since we had confirmed that the caliper itself seemingly wasn’t the problem, we loosened the flex hose that carries the brake fluid under thousands of pounds per square inch to the caliper wheel cylinder. I worked the hose a bit, and then had my young friend press the brake pedal with the C-clamp on the caliper piston in order to ascertain if the problem was the piston.
While she was pressing the pedal, I could hear something hissing and even saw some dust coming off the inside of the hood. I looked underneath and saw nothing, and then had her press again. Finally, there was enough sprayed brake fluid that it dripped out from underneath the engine compartment and I raised to hood to see where the line to that wheel was rusted through.
The result is frustrating, but not the end of the world, and I had my assistant help me pack up the tools while we waited for my friend to arrive from work so we could drive to the city to buy a new brake line and some fluid.
Once we went on our road trip adventure, it was left to the next morning to sort the line, so I bent it into place, despite it being a bit long since I was taking a short cut and the lines are not sold in exactly the length we needed, and bolted it in place.
Then I put a torch on the brake caliper and tried, successfully it turned out, to loosen the bleed valve. I thought it was too rusted, and I was afraid to break it off, but once I heated it with my blow torch for a few minutes, I managed to free it. Then I put a hose on the valve, placed its end into a cut off plastic bottle, and bled the lines by pumping until the half bottle was nearly full. Then I twisted shut the line and tested the brakes. They were annoyingly spongy. I bled them some more and then looked under the car to find, to my horror, that another brake line had burst. It was one of the two lines that delivers fluid to the back of the car. I realized I was in for a longer haul than I thought. I rallied my nerve, brought out my big toolbox, and jacked the wheels high enough to get the car up on blocks so it was relatively more stable.
When I crawled underneath the car and removed it, I found the plastic holder that covered the brake and fuel lines had trapped moisture, salt, dirt, and who knows what else against the lines and they were heavily rusted. The job was suddenly much bigger than I thought.
I contemplated what would have to be done, lying under the car in the spring rain and measuring the cables and then borrowing my friend’s car and driving to the city to buy more, and possibly having to replace the fuel lines as well, and dropping the gas tank. All of it sounded horrible.
I decided, in retrospect, I shouldn’t kill myself over this. I have lain under too many cars over the years and I am becoming heartily tired of it. I have the cash to get my mechanic friend to do the work and the only thing standing in my way is that I have never done this. I have always done my own work, even if it was an engine job, and only now have I decided to let someone else who will find the job easier do it for me.
I went back to the bush using the emergency brake and then stayed there until Monday which is the time I had agreed upon with my friend that I would be dropping off the car. I woke in the snow at the cabin and then drove into the city with the wipers not working. That was particularly annoying, especially since at times I could barely see. Luckily the snow turned to rain and then diminished and I was able to drive without worrying that the cops would pull me over and then discover that my brakes weren’t working. I drove using the engine to slow the car down and then using the emergency brake.
Now I am visiting my friends and my mechanic friend is breaking his back over that old car. I hope it goes reasonably well.
