About a month ago, my stepdaughter borrowed my truck to help a friend of hers move some furniture into storage. The next day, she reported that the brake pedal was going very low and that the truck wasn't stopping well. I declared the truck out of service until such time as I could get around to fixing it.
Of course, being able to bicycle to jobs meant that I was not in a big hurry to fix it. Over the course of a couple weeks, I tinkered with it, and found that a brake line had rusted to the point that it had a pinhole. Of course, it was the longest line in the system, going from the distribution block under the master cylinder to the rear axle (or at least the fitting where the flex hose to the rear axle attaches). That brake line is installed to the frame rail before the wire loom and fuel tank are added to the chassis, so it doesn't come out. A replacement line is routed differently as well.
I bought ten feet of replacement brake line, a junction to connect the two segments, and an adapter to connect this line to the distribution block. Of course, replacing brake lines leads to bleeding the air from the system. In strict accordance with Murphy's Law, both rear bleed screws sheared off when I tried to open them. Next trip to the parts house was for a rear wheel cylinder, to enable bleeding the rear system.
A neighbor arrived at his home about the time I was ready to bleed the brakes, so he helped me do that. The brake pedal never seemed to build pressure, however, so I let him go home and poked around a bit more. Sure enough, the union fittings were not quite tight enough--there was a small ring of brake fluid on the driveway. That wasn't the larger problem, though: there was a much bigger puddle of brake fluid by the right front wheel!
There is a flex hose that connects at the frame and at the brake caliper. It had sprung a leak, and a fairly bad one, judging from the amount of fluid on the underside of the car and on the driveway. No wonder the brake pedal wasn't giving any feedback. I had the hose, having bought it when I put new brakes on the truck a few years ago. I dug around in the garage for a few minutes and found it, then set to installing it. The frame-end fitting was in an awkward enough place that it took a while to change out, but it eventually went back together. By this time, of course, I had to go get more brake fluid...
After a number of trips to the parts supplier, a couple of trips to a different store for brake fluid (the parts house is only open until 7:00), and a fair bit of cussing and fussing, I now have brakes! The truck is more-or-less drivable once again.
Oh, except for that when I got the report about the brakes, I also got a report that a rock had hit the windshield, causing a crack. Once I'm confident that the truck is indeed operational, I'll call the insurance company and arrange to have a new windshield installed.
...and people wonder why I prefer to ride a bicycle!
Boulder, Louisville, and press coverage of crashes
16 years ago
2 comments:
In the early 1980s, I almost became NIASE-certified for brake repair (NIASE became ASE a few years later, and required that one pass the full gamut of tests to become certified). I worked at U-Haul as a truck mechanic for a while in the mid-1980s, and did a fair bit of work on my own cars over the last thirty-five years (not to mention other cars owned by friends and relatives).
The biggest problem was that at just about each stage, I found myself needing to make yet another trip to the parts house. I like to ride a bicycle, but that was getting ridiculous!
Working on cars, much like bikes always goes faster when everything possibly needed is on hand. and you can lift the vehicle up to a comfortable level to work on.
I don't work on cars anymore for the simple fact that I don't have a lift.
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