Drum Brakes - 12/03/2006

Keeping a car mobile is good, but being able to STOP a car from being mobile is divine! Brakes were the next priority. They stopped the car... kinda. Not terrible, but I wouldn't trust them for long. Since I didn't know what I needed up front, I got rear drum shoes, and two wheel cylinders (two different manufacturers), front pads, and a rear brake hose ("no one ever replaces those!" Steve commented, but the Grand Am needs it and since we're there...). But some other minor needs were attended to first...



This is THE most bizarre rot I've ever seen on a car. The floors are pristine, the frame rails look like they just rolled off the line, and in the DOOR JAM we have rot city. I can only assume that the window channels leaked once (for a VERY long time) in the Arizona desert and it rotted out. Luckily we have "Bitchin' Camaro" to pull parts from down the hill.



This is a standard firebird horn setup. I need to order the plastic spring and horn assembly to fix this.



That is one nice steering wheel and column! Almost too nice to put in the ratty rod this car is.



Yeah. This mirror sucks. Someone cut off the adjuster cables and ripped out the mirror glass assembly for some strange reason.



Someone blew the hell out of the bolt holes on this side. Almost like they wanted the mirror but didn't want to use tools to get it off. Speed nuts on the other side should take care of this.



BC donates its mirrors to the cause. Mismatched colored mirrors is only JUST the beginning of this car's journey to bastardization!



Yay. A worthless piece of junk now.



So pretty.



Driver side drum setup is surprisingly in good shape.



Passenger drum setup is good too. The pads are brand new on this car, so someone really did care for it at one time.



Too good to last. This rotor is completely wasted. Less than 0.125" of meat left to clean up, forget about it. Bleeders on the calipers opened, so the caliper is still good!



Passenger hose is not ripped, but is going to be replaced anyway.



Driver's side rotor is worse than the passenger side rotor. Only like 0.100" left and most of that will probably fall off when cut. Time for new rotors! Never let your cars sit on the ground in the dirt with no tires on kids!



Hose isn't terrible, but it gets replaced too!



The adjusters are cleaned up and ready to be put back in.



New NAPA cylinder. Made in Taiwan. And it fits. The Autozone fit... NOT SO MUCH. Grinding was necessary on the housing and a little rounding out of the drum assembly mounting hole was necessary. SO MUCH FUN. And the Autozone part was $13 while the NAPA was $9! Let's hope the Autozone leaks first so I have an excuse to replace it. I would have had a NAPA set but NAPA only had ONE with the right part number. The shelf part was completely wrong for what was supposed to be the right mate.



New cylinder installed and everything put back together.



Watch where that wrench goes when you are not looking! You can punch a hole accidentally in your car's rust spot. The second rot spot so far. It was all metal and not mud, although this quarter looks like it was hit in the past and seems to have some mud in the top wheel well overhang area. Hopefully this won't be TOO hard to replace.



This is why the quarter rotted. All that dirt combined with a rotten hole trunk to let water in equals mud with no place to go and thus it rots.



No workday would be complete without a shot of us cleaning up the slab and working to show that we don't just work on my stuff out here! Phil and Steve push the soon-to-be-de"part"ed Buick into line with the rest of the future victims...



Pete's first day out here and he decides to go on wheel chock duty and gets left out of the photo! Although he is technically there, just behind the car where you can't see...

Fun times! Front brakes, brake hoses, and then bleeding the brakes are next! Also cleaning out the rear end differential too!

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Last updated December 3rd, 2006