getting there

i'll go ahead and do two posts in one today. it was like a blast furnace outside, so i didn't work at all today. but, i got some good work done on friday night and saturday.

as for friday, i got home a little early from work and immediately went outside. packed the passenger side bearings, slipped the rotor on, adjusted the endplay, slapped on the caliper and voila! passenger side done. the interesting thing is that i had no pad rubbing issues like on the driver's side. about an hour later, my friend paul and his family came over. the kids played with each other inside and he and i got down to the business of breaking the rear axle nuts. he'd brought a huge 3/4" ratchet with a matco 1/2" adaptor and a big pipe. we sprayed some more penetrating oil on (he brought some special stuff from his shop) and went to work. well, the only thing paul ended up doing was literally just picking up the car and turning the wheels. he was shocked. so he gave it one final shot and we hear a big pop! we thought he'd loosened the nut, but he'd actually busted the matco adaptor! sheared it right off. so we laughed and headed over to his shop. after rummaging around, he found a snap-on adaptor and socket (probably $100+ right there) and we headed back. this time, i sat on the back end to try and keep that down. we put the chocks in place and he went to work. bang! we both looked at each other not knowing if we'd broken the snap-on stuff or actually gotten the nut loose. fortunately, it was the nut. so one side down. went over to the other and bang! second nut done. it's amazing how the right tools really do work. i know that snap-on stuff is terribly expensive but it does work.

saturday was a nice day. i ended up fixing the driver's side caliper clearance issue by putting another washer on the caliper screws. now there is just enough clearance between the pad and the rotor so they don't rub. i checked the rotor out and it's on there properly and the end-play looks good. so hopefully this will be a good fix. i then jacked up the back of the car and got to work tearing down the rear drums. it really wasn't that bad of a job, just really messy. the side that had the leaky wheel cylinder was especially nasty. many years of brake dust coupled with brake fluid made for a black sludge that coated everything. but i got it all off without a problem, all the way down to the backing plate. i didn't buy new bearings for the rear, but i think i'm going to go ahead and put new ones in. might as well. once again i had a problem with one of the brake lines (the passenger side this time) and ruined one of the bolts. so i'll need to buy another hard line. no big deal. it was really easy bending the other one for the front. i should have bought all new hardlines and just not worried about it. especially since i have all new stainless steel hoses.

so that's where i stand now. front brakes are done except for bleeding (that'll happen once i get the new master cylinder in) and the rears are just waiting new bearings so i can put the rest back together. as always, i snapped some pictures of the progress.


look ma! no wheels!


a shot of the passenger side disc and caliper (checkout my trusty sledgehammer)


another shot of the passenger side


a shot of the nasty driver's side drum before i tore it down