It all started with a bad tail light… Just wanted to write a few lines to let you know about the AWESOME day I had. And by, “awesome,” I mean ridiculously stressful. The day was so awesome that as soon as it was over I passed out, face down on the couch mentally exhausted. But now that it’s a full day past, it’s almost comical.
Monday, my wife texts me to let me know she had been pulled over for having a tail light out. Great way to start the day as some of you know. And yes, she texted me WHILE pulled over, cause that’s how she rolls. So I say no problem we’ll pick one up in the afternoon after picking up the girls from school. And the rest of the morning went pretty normal. Standard day-to-dayness.
So after school on Mondays one of my daughters has dance class. It’s always a tough night to get dinner on the table at a decent time. It’s the night we may just pick up a pizza or something, which we did. As we are driving home the car starts to shudder slightly. Then, as we’re pulling into our drive there’s a terrible smell. I was pretty sure I knew what the problem was, and touching the wheel of the car confirmed it as soon as I got out. It was blazing hot. Brakes. Damn. Not something I felt like dealing with suddenly. But as a single car family with kids that go to school in a different county, I knew I had to jump right on them. Just to be certain, I popped the tire off and gave them a look. Yup. They were fried.
the one in the back is what your brakes should look like, the one in the front was ours.
There was no way to get to an auto parts store that evening, so we arranged for Pop Pop to pick me and my daughter up the following morning. He’d drive us to her school. We’d drop her off and head to the auto parts store, I’d pop on the brakes and be done well before lunch. Inconvenient as hell, but not a tragedy.
That’s when things got, “interesting.” After Caroline’s father dropped me back at home and I got the tire off, I suddenly remembered one of the tools I need for changing brakes is at my mother’s house…across a river…in a different county. So, I call good ol’ Pop Pop back who thankfully comes back and picks me up, again, to take me to get my tool and drops be back home, again. But now I have the new brakes and my tools and it’s only about 9:40am so it was a setback, but it’s all good. So I think…
For those who have never changed brakes before, there’s a step in the process where you have to compress a piston with a large C-Clamp (the tool I’d left at mom’s) in order to get the brakes back on the wheel. While I begin to do so, brake fluid squirts out of the seals on the pistons and you don’t have to be a master mechanic to know that’s bad. So now my brake caliper is wrecked. Big sigh. Possible utterance of an expletive. Here we go again…
This time I call my mother for a ride to the auto parts store because I don’t want Pop Pop to stop taking my calls. We have to drive to a few different stores because none had one in stock for our vehicle, but we eventually find one and it turns out to cost less there then most other places. Sweet, cause I was already stressing the money for the brakes. We finally get home and I go back to work on the car for the third time, get the caliper replaced, new brakes on, brake lines bled and all is finally good. By this point it’s about time to pick my daughter up from school so the day had been lost, but at least I don’t need anymore rides.
After changing the brakes and caliper, I of course test drove it and made sure everything was good before going to get my daughter. And it was driving great. As we are pulling up to the house, again a burning smell and a blazing hot wheel. Definite utterance of a couple expletives. Before my family is even in the house I’m jacking the car back up and pretty much ripping the wheel off. the brakes are clamped down solid.
After bleeding some pressure out of the brake I’m finally able to get it open. The brake pads are new, the caliper is new, I test it to be sure it’s not defective, it’s not. I need a brake hose. It’s only letting fluid pass in one direction. So the brakes close, but never open. Sonovuh! So another call to mom, another trip to an auto parts store, another unbudgeted purchase, and another removing of the tire and brakes later and I’m replacing a brake hose… at 10pm…in the dark with a desk lamp.
Finally, the hose is on, the caliper is on, the brakes are on and bled…again…it’s cold, it’s 11pm and I’m putting the tire back on. A bolt breaks. I just walk away….. Luckily, it was a simple bolt that I had an extra of in the shed otherwise I just might have shot the car.
It’s been a full 24 hours and everything has been fine. After a week, I’ll be laughing about the day I was gonna have to do a “quick” brake job. Next time the brakes need changed I’m replacing everything that is remotely related to them whether they need it or not. I’m a chef, not a mechanic, but I’ve always refused to pay the ridiculous labor cost for jobs as “simple” as brakes. I’m seriously reconsidering that logic.
Today, I did absolutely nothing all day and I’m okay with that.