a photoblog of what i did today.....

[glatt]

wow! I'm impressed.

[zippyt]

Way Cool BS !!!!

[BigV]

Originally Posted by Big Sarge

5 years old and can work a manual in 1st gear, shoots a .22 rifle, and helps skin game. Now if I could only get the other 3 kids to......

Man.

This is completely awesome!! I give you, and Addie, a standing ovation!

[Big Sarge]

Thanks. She's my little buddy. I guess I get to spend more time with her because I'm older than I was with the other 3. Plus being gone on deployments starting with Desert Storm (5 total), made me miss a great deal of their lives.

I guess I'm trying to say I screwed up as a dad when I was younger and I've learned from my mistakes

[BigV]

Don't we all.

I've told my younger kids that they owe a debt to their oldest brother for breaking trail for them.

[glatt]

Originally Posted by BigV

Don't we all.

[Big Sarge]

so true

[glatt]

Originally Posted by glatt

First we remove the brake caliper piston assembly thing and hang it by a bent coat hanger from one of the giant springs holding up the car. We're hanging it because the line full of brake fluid is too weak to hold up this big and heavy hunk of metal and I don't want to have to mess with replacing brake fluid and bleeding air out of the system, so I just leave the whole thing attached to the brake fluid lines. But I want it out of the way, so I hang it up.

In the interest of full disclosure. The brakes seemed fine to me after pumping the pedals a lot to seat the calipers and going for a test drive, but when I gave the car to my wife, she thought the pedal was really soft and the brakes were bad. She had a scare when the car didn't stop the way she was expecting. I listened to her description of what happened, and realized the pedal was indeed pretty soft. My pumping them initially had masked the problem when I was testing the car.

Somehow I must have gotten air or contaminants in the line when I pushed the pistons back in with a C-clamp.

I've since read that it's better to bleed off the brake fluid when pushing the piston back in rather than pushing all the fluid back up to the master cylinder.

Anyway, that meant I needed to bleed the brakes to try to get the air out of the system. And I figured that as long as I was bleeding the brakes, I might as well put a lot of fluid in and basically flush them. So that's what I did over the weekend. Didn't take any pictures, because there's nothing to take a picture of. You just open a valve at the right rear wheel, have someone pump the brakes with the engine off, and then close the valve, and tell them to take their foot off the brake. Repeat about 8 times, and then add fluid to the master cylinder. Repeat that cycle for about 20 minutes until all new fluid is coming out at the RR wheel, and you don't see any bubbles in your bleeder tube. Then bleed the left rear wheel, and then right front wheel, and then left front wheel.

It's tedious and takes an hour and requires a helper. But the helper can go inside and watch the Giants beat the Redskins while you are putting the wheels back on and taking the next one off and getting your clear tube in place and inserted in your bottle. They only need to come out to pump the pedal for a few minutes at a time.

So add about $15 in brake fluid to the job. And $2 for a clear plastic tube. And I had to buy an offset wrench to reach the bleeder valve on the rear brakes, because the brake drum lip was in the way of my regular wrench, and the single wrench was sold out, so I had to buy a set for $22.

So add $40 to the job, but it also resulted in a brake line flush.

My wife is very pleased with the brakes now. And I'm glad she can stop the car when she needs to.

[jimhelm]

you da man

[Big Sarge]

I wish I had your mechanical knowledge. I do well just to change the oil. Very impressive

[glatt]

Well, I'd never done it before. I read the shop manual and watched a few Youtube vids. I just have confidence and some tools.

[plthijinx]

congrats to both glatt and Big Sarge...well done!!!

i remember learning to drive with a korean war era weapons carrier (and our cj-5 jeep, hell i didn't care as long as i got to drive!) i was about 5 or 6 with my dad. that is something Addie will never forget! having dad teach her to drive!

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by glatt

Somehow I must have gotten air or contaminants in the line when I pushed the pistons back in with a C-clamp.

Not necessarily you're fault, it could have already been contaminated. You were smart to push as much new fluid into the system as you could, fresh fluid never hurts.

[BrianR]

My Avalanche's brakes are now due for a pad change. The squealing is getting loud. After a mandatory dentist visit, I will be buying a set of extreme duty pads and getting to work.

[plthijinx]

a couple weeks ago i was sitting on the couch eating supper watching TV with Paul and i glance over at an electrical socket on the wall and notice a burn mark on it. Seen this sort of thing before (so i thought) no big deal right?

wrong.

I asked Paul if he knew anything about it to which he said "no" so i guess it was the maid that did it with the vacuum cleaner. (will make sense here in a little bit).

what really, REALLY, pisses me off is that nothing was said of the smoked outlet. i wasn't pissed until i went to replace the socket last saturday night. scorched doesn't even come close. destroyed does though.

When I opened up the junction box cover and saw the extent of the damage is when i got pissed. this could have caused a serious fire.

(going to be a two post thread here)

here is the outlet: