Monday, September 21, 2009

Long Time No See

Yes, it has been quite some time... To recap, the last time we talked, I had changed out the rear brakes for my most recent Benz project.

This seemed to work fine, except that they squealed something fierce when applying the brakes in reverse. Furthermore, the last time I washed the car, I noticed that the outboard side of the passenger rear rotor looked BRAND NEW. I figured that I would have to redo them at some point, but if you are not from around the Seattle area, you wouldn't know that we are having an historic summer. We have had temps in the 80's pretty consistently with 20-30 days at a time of sunshine. The Benz has become my daily driver, and a noisy rear brake (who cares about the rears anyway??) wasn't going to keep me from driving the heck out of it over the last couple of months.

As September arrived and Labor Day weekend saw the reappearance of typical Seattle holiday weekend rain, I thought it would be time to spring into action. I got ahold of some replacement brake shims, and took the initiative to order a new caliper for that side. Caliper failures are common in old cars, and I figured since I would have it all apart, it would be smart just to change it out, since that was likely the problem.

The replacement ended up being pretty simple. Removing the brake line was the only thing that I hadn't done, and it turned out to be a pretty easy job. All in all, it took about two hours (including time to jack up the car, and gossip with the neighbor about local real estate transactions). the brake squeal is gone, and I'll check the rotor for wear going forward. To this point, it all seems to be ok.

To top off the good fortune, it is back into the 80's and I have two road trips for client visits this week. Good news for me!

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