Brake job...part 1...
 

Well the Chevy's brakes were making all kinds of neat noises so I figured it was time for brakes, all around. Did the fronts today, and I love working on relatively young vehicles! Suspension parts come apart! Not like on a 20 year old car where its all torching and cutting!


So since the calipers bleeders were messed up and the brake lines due to GM's piss poor design were slowly cutting themselves, I figured I'd do everything. Disc, rotors, pads, hoses. Drivers side is done...pass side was going good until I put the rotor on and spun it...hmm that doesn't sound healthy. Turns out the wheel bearing was just starting to go bad. Wouldn't have heard it going down the road for awhile. So now that's off and I'm waiting for Carquest to get me the part. Which I hope they can get because I don't want to put it all back together and than have to do a wheel bearing in a month or two when it starts screaming.

I love working on GM's so simple, and parts are so cheap. A new hub assembly is like $100. Since modern vehicles have sealed wheel bearings now... On my dads F150 its over twice that, Ford rapes you.

Later this week I'm doing the rear brakes, which are drums, and suck.

Hmmm, it's amazing how a couple of snow-bound and Scotch-less days will motivate you. :P

Self-cutting brake lines?

We shouldn't have bailed out Generic Morons, and turned Deeee-TROIT into a nuclear testing ground for hire when we had the chance.

Part 1?


My step 1... Drop it off at the shop. My step 2, return when complete pay bill. My step 3, drive home.

Step 4, break down on the side of the road cause you took it to a shop that didn't know what they were doing ;)

Nah, I sell it before I even get close to step 4.... :eek:

I don't like doing brakes. If I mess it up and wreck because the brakes didn't work, I'd only have myself to blame. Paying someone else gives me the protection that they'll do it right, or I'll have them in court and cause them as much damage as they caused me.

This logic is flawed.

Any shop will test drive the vehicle and be sure the brakes work when the vehicle leaves the shop.

If their poor workmanship causes a failure 30 or 60 days from the date of the work, you'll NEVER prove that their work was the cause of the failure. You'd need a professional engineer with complete knowledge of a vehicle brake system and you'd have to pay him thousands of dollars for his testimony.

I do not know of a single person who prevailed against an auto mechanic on any work done. It's a simple matter of your word versus the mechanic and the mechanic is the professional.

I always laugh when people are afraid to work on brakes (one of the simplest vehicle systems) and trust the "mechanic" to do the job right. If he does (which is likely)..........terrific...........if he does not..........you'll never prevail unless he's a total and complete idiot and the brakes fail on the way home from the shop.

I trust myself more than some mechanic. I have more of an interest in doing it right. I can end up dead or killing someone I love. A mechanic can end up sued or in jail at worst.

I'll stick to doing it myself considering that the other day I saw a "mechanic" attempt to remove a battery terminal by SQUEEZING it with channel locks... :eek::rolleyes::D

I like brake work.... simple and easy. Can even do most of the job sitting on your ass.
Of course I use the Hattie plan, buy all new stuff and put it on.
I will change pads once or twice (maybe) before doing the rotors and calipers.
(American cars. I believe my new calipers on the SD will last considerably longer)


Even brake lines, ever since I discovered spools of copper/nickel brake line...;)
Bends and flares like a dream, and won't rust.

When it comes to bleeding them, I just leave the bleeder open, lid off, and a pan under it. Come back in 20 minutes and it's dripping steadily. Bleed and new fluid. Just make sure you don't run the reservoir dry or you have to start over. Generally, I do one corner at a time and one side bleeds while I'm working the other.

My wife's car (Chrysler) came with new front brakes put on by some shop or another. Looked fine when I inspected them.
Months go by, and she complains to me that they don't work in the rain....
So, I take them apart to look closer....
Idiot had not cleaned the waxy s**t off the rotors. Was oozed all over the surface and edges of the pads.
Took the better part of an hour to scrape the pads and rotors with a razor and get everything clean and functional.

Then it occurred to me that we bought the car with a light hit in the front where the PO's wife had hit someone that cut in front of her.... in the rain.

Mechanic was likely the reason she could not stop for the DB.

i did sue a mechanic and win in the past...it was a oil pump replacement on a Ford 302. The mechanic didn't check the pump prior to installing it. There was a crack in the pump drive shaft, which snapped on the first start up. The mechanic started the car, took it for a drive on the highway the morning after the work was done (temperature was in the single digits) and ended up needing to call a tow truck. They claimed that it wasn't the oil pump, because it was new. When they were ordered midway through the trial to drop the oil pan while a second mechanic was present, it was found, snapped in two.

The garage ended up doing a bottom end rebuild and pay for a the rental car I used during the trial, and during the work, as well as pay for my attorney fees. It doesn't take much, just the right people and time...

why bother doing the drums, they are probably fine

TheDon may very well be correct, but you won't know until you pull the drums.

Drum brake work is not as quick and simple as discs but as long as you have a pair of brake spring pliers and the retainer spring tool it's not bad. In the old days the problem was the mess. Since the widespread availability of brake cleaner this is much easier and safer. Pull the drum and just spray it all down top to bottom and let all that crap fall down onto a few layers of newspaper and you're ready to go to work without fear of mesothelioma and a much cleaner job.

The people who do not put the self adjusters back on are screwing up badly IMHO. Put the adjusters back on and lube the rub points with white grease. Then when you back out of the driveway or parking space bring it to a moderately hard stop and let the vehicle then rock forward. Do this and they will stay adjusted.

Also a good brake shop after completely finished should ALWAYS be tested by sitting in the drivers seat with both hands on the steering wheel and both feet on the brake pedal if possible then stand on that pedal with all your might! If anything is going to blow that is where you want it to happen, NOT on the road.

As much as I hate doing it I saved myself like a G note doing it, so its worth it.

Part two are the rear brakes, probably later this week.

Of course, brake cleaner -- nasty chlorinated junk -- is probably carcinogenic in itself :) Can't win if you try.

This being said, drum brakes were good in 1950 before power brake servos were widespread. They're a useless bad design now, and I hope I never own a vehicle with rear drums.

I do brakes myself because most mechanics are idiots, and don't take their time to do a job correctly. I do, I double check every fastener, etc.

I'm going to inspect them, they are making noise, and have 60k miles on the shoes. Should last longer though.

I'm not a fan either, but most modern vehicles with rear drums aren't that bad because the vast majority of the braking is accomplished by the front brakes anyway. Except for a couple of antique cars around my place, everything around here has 4 wheel discs.

I'm the same way. I approach brakes and steering components as if they were aircraft components. That's why I stand on the pedal before taking it on the road.

As far as the bad bearing goes, anyone doing car work should get in the habit of spinning anything when the opportunity presents itself to check for a rough bearing any time they get the chance.

If a front wheel is off the ground for any reason, give the wheel a spin to make sure the bearing isn't rough. If you have a belt off, spin everything that you can to make sure all the bearings are smooth. Develop this habit and you will be surprised how often you find something that needs attention and take care of it before it tears up something worse or possibly leaves you beside the road.

Drums are heavier, a pain to remove if grooved, and generally more complex. All that for worse braking. What's the point, now that handbrake mechanisms integrated into rear calipers have been perfected?

Yeah I check everything, this bearing was just starting to go bad. The only way I noticed it was spinning the disc with the caliper off.

I like catching problems before they are problems, more so when everything is already apart. Luckily Carquest had one in stock.

Cheaper, which is why they can sell base pickups for $18k or less sometimes.

Toyota is the worst offender here, they use more drums than anyone. GM is getting away from them, I think the current Silverado half ton which is ending its production run this year is their last big seller with rear drums.

Toyota still uses them on everything that's cheap.

http://i353.photobucket.com/albums/r...211_170825.jpg

My latest acquisition has brand new 4 wheel drum brakes!

That is the one thing I *hate* ABOUT IT. That and the manual unassisted steering.

No smog tests - though - ever.. is nice.

So is having just 41k on it...

http://i353.photobucket.com/albums/r.../cougar002.jpg

Jim, maybe it's a little late since you already went through the drum brakes, but it's not too big of a deal to upgrade any mid sixties Ford to front discs using wrecking yard stuff from the seventies.

BTW I've been admiring your Cougar from afar since you got it. Neat car!

Good catch! Sounds like you've developed the "spin and check when you can" habit.:)

I don't like drums any more than you, but you must not be familiar with how the car companies think. If they can save ten bucks per vehicle multiplied by a million vehicles means ten million bucks in their pocket. Your average driver has no idea what type brakes are under their car so the mfg's get by with it.

One major advantage of drum brakes on the rear axle of a truck versus discs all around...parking brakes. If you look closely at the parking brake system, it's basic, but does the job very well

Many of the newer systems incorporate a drum bake system for the parking brake inside of the rear discs, but the cost of that is still higher than plain discs.

With many of the manufacturing sites int he US going robotic, I suspect the old drum brake system will fall to the wayside in the next couple of years...you don't have to pay for insurance and benefits for robots.

I hate working on GM cars. I still get pissed when I see side post terminals on their batteries crammed into a tight spot when there is an abundance of room on top to put them.

JP, the newer rear disc vehicles have a mechanism that uses the pads for the parking brake. the drum inside the rotor hat is old tech now.

The EPITOME of a tough side post battery to change is in a GM vehicle, the fourth generation Vette. You have to remove a fender panel and slide the battery sideways.

I agree, the sidepost battery was a BAD idea.

My 190SL has four wheel drums, I don't know how cougars are, but most people who dislike 190SL brakes have never driven one where they are set up properly. Are your front brakes all iron? On my car I've got aluminum drums with steel liners and aluminum shoes.

The manual steering is a bummer on my car as well, but luckily I have the a steering wheel from a cruise ship on my car, all the money Mercedes spent making steering wheels so large, they could have developed power steering.

Change both front wheel bearings, the other won't be far behind.

This.


Seems that GMCs like to eat wheel bearings... Especially ones like mine, lifted with big'ol tires on it...

Big, and I mean really big, not just a few sizes larger, will eat a LOT more than wheel bearings. Transmission shops around here will not offer any warranty at all on a transmission rebuild that's going in a truck with siginificantly oversize tires. The added torque it takes to turn those things is tremendous.

Yes, there were a few cars with superior drum brakes. The buicks of the late fifties and sixties had big finned aluminum drums with iron liners. They made the very best brakes for the front of a hot rod in the days before disc brakes. Do a quality turning on them and tru arc some quality shoes to fit them, and they were very impressive even if they were still on that land yacht Buick.

Getting rid of drums on the front made such a huge improvement that the makers found that they could get by with leaving the drums on the rear, because they had a minimal effect.

In the fifties when the mid level and high level cars, e.g, Buick, Olds, Cadillac, Mercury, Lincoln, etc. started getting really heavy, the drums really started being marginal. I remember my Dad ca. 1956 invested in a quality drum lathe and a TruArc machine. He would turn the drums and the use the TruArc machine to fit some quality shoes to the drums. If one were to simply use normal wear to make the shoes fit the drums, they would have hot spots and would not break in as effectively. He had a reputation in town as being someone who could do a really good brake job.

A few years back I was at a Friday night cruise where a young fellow had a well done rat rod. I made a comment about the Buick brakes on the front and he asked me how I knew that they were Buick brakes. I didn't really know how to answer the question. He said that they did work really well. Of course the car probably didn't weigh much more than 2,000 pounds.

Another set of superior drum brakes I remember were the ones I put on my '69 Roadrunner. These were relatively light cars with components meant for heavier cars. When it came brake time, a friend of mine at a local brake and alignment shop told me that he would make a set of great brakes for it for nothing.

I took him the drums and shoes. He took scraps of quality lining material and riveted them in place on the shoes in three sections per shoe with about a 1/2" between each section. He then turned the drums and Tru Arced the shoes to fit the drums. When I got it all back together I was amazed. Up until that point I had never owned a car with better brakes. I don't think I ever did until my new 240D in '77.

Like anything else, there are good and bad within the category. I still prefer disc brakes hands down, but there are some drums that are better than others.

New adjusters are worth the $20 or so, my truck's drums stay tight now it's incredible.

Also, preheating and painting the outside of the drums has kept them from rusting at all....shoe checks are much less messy than ever before

Yeah if I get bored I might paint the drums before putting them on, I don't really care enough on this vehicle though. Its just a work truck.

Paint them pink and Ill send you $20.

LMAO, heck no!:P:D

Whatttt....?


Why not?


Not comfortable enough in your manhood?

It's old tech, but it works. Ford and GM have used a caliper-applied parking brake and they are frought with issues. Mercedes had the right idea, and so does Ram with its rear parking drums. GM goes cheap and just uses drum brakes on their LD trucks.

Maybe you should throw in a copy of 50 shades.....:D

Don't forget to warp it in a yellow bow and sprinkle it with glitter....

:D

Ill throw in a print copy of the 50 Shades Trilogy! :D:eek::P

Oh I won't... Pink glitter to match those fuzzy pink handcuffs! :eek:

I only have experience with my own vehicles, but I've had excellent service from three American vehicles with caliper parking brakes. Anecdotal, but so far so good.

My first auto was a 1964 Chevrolet Chevelle.

A factory option for these cars was sintered metallic brake lining.

I did not know this when I got the car. I would have added them at the time were it possible.

Most consumers did not know or care about this option. Few were sold with them. And front discs were still about 3 model years ahead, for GM to offer....

I remember when that first year Chevelle first came out. I thought it was the most beautiful Chevy I had ever seen.

My elderly uncle bought a new 64 SS with a 283 Power Pack, 4 speed. I drooled all over that thing. It was gorgeous.