That which does not kill you will annoy the shit out of you instead

I call nights like last night character builders.  The task for the evening was to replace the front brake pads on Cindy’s Miata.  I had done my normal video tutorial before going into the job, I didn’t expect any major speed bumps.  The job started at 5:45pm. It ended at 11:05 PM. There were bumps.

When I went to take the wheels off with my newly acquired spline lug nut adapter I had my first minor issue.  It looked like someone else that did not have an adapter tried to remove a lug nut via brute force, it was all mangled.    I got around this by using my hammer to drive the lug adapter on the nut.  Luckily it wasn’t on all that tight and I could break it loose.

Once I had access to the brakes on the driver side I removed the lower caliper bolt which is supposed to allow it to flip upward, giving access to the  brake pads. Well it didn’t want to move.  It felt like the top caliper bolt was very tight and not allowing the caliper body to move.  I pulled out the Miata Haynes repair manual to double check what I recalled from the video, yep it should just flip up.  Well this one wasn’t.

So I figured the easiest way to address this was to loosen that top 17mm bolt.  Well that was easier said than done, it was almost welded in place.  I beat on it with a wrench and mini-sledge for a looong time until it started to move.  I was worried I would snap the head on it, it turned so hard.  Eventually I got it a few turns looser which allowed the caliber body to flip up.

The old pads, which looked thin to me when I peered at them with the wheel still on were actually not that badly worn, there was still a good amount of pad material left.  Well of course I was going to replace them anyway.  The actual act of replacing brake pads is pretty damn simple.  You just pop the old ones out and pop the new ones in, assuming the retaining clips stay in place.  I put the new pads in.

The old pads did not have the anti-rattle springs that I used with other brake work.  They are used to keep the pads off the discs when the brake pedal is not applied.  I wondered why they were missing but based on other shortcuts that have been done on the car, I wasn’t all that surprised.

I put the caliper back in place and spun the brake disc.  It seemed to be making more contact with the pads than it should be but I wasn’t sure if this was just because I didn’t seat them yet.  I put the wheel back on and went to passenger side.

As soon as I worked on the caliper on that side I knew something was up on the driver side.  When I removed the lower caliper bolt on the passenger side front brake the assembly lifted up easily with no resistance from the top bolt which “floated” back and forth.  There was no float in the driver side bolt.  I knew I was going to have to revisit it again. Replacing the pads on the passenger side was a piece of cake.

So I hopped back over to the driver side and removed the wheel once again.  I found that by turning the top bolt out a few more turns I had more clearance for the new pads but I still could not get any float from the top caliper bolt.  I buttoned the driver side back up and took the car out for a test drive.

When you first put pads in you are supposed to “seat” them.   The way you do this is via several hard decelerations.  I got the Miata up to about 60 and then hit the brakes hard.  After I did this the second time I heard the unwelcome sound of metal on metal.  I turned around and babied the Miata back into the garage.

By this time the sun had set and an army of flying insects had invaded the garage, drawn to the bright overhead light.  It made for a nice annoying distraction if I didn’t have enough annoying me already.  The noise was clearly coming from the driver side so I pulled that wheel.  I felt like punching myself in the face when I pulled the inner pad. It was in backwards, with the pad metallic backing plate against the brake disc.  What an idiot.

Luckily the disc itself felt ok, despite my boneheadedness. Now I could have flipped the pad around and tried to use it again but I didn’t feel good about doing that to Cindy’s car.  It also appeared that I lost one of the pad retaining clips (which I later found) so I figured I need to buy a brake hardware kit and a new set of pads.  I hopped on the Autozone site first seeing if they had these kits.  They did but not in stock.  I checked the Advance Auto web site, I found the part at exactly one of their stores.  I called to verify they had it in stock and in hand, I didn’t want to do a 30 mile round trip for nothing.  The clerk said he definitely had it.

By this time it was 8PM.  I asked him how long they are open? “Till 9…” Ok I will be there.

Besides being frustrated I was starving by this time.  I figured in transit to the auto parts store I would swing through McD’s for a fish sandwich.

Well I was unaware that 8:20PM was prime time for the McDonalds crowd.  The drive thru line was 5 cars deep.  I figured I may as well just park and grab something to go. As usual, the McDonalds crowd didn’t disappoint in interesting visuals.  The most interesting to me was the woman in  front of me.  She was probably 5′ 5″  and if I were to guess 300 plus pounds.

She had a few musical notes tattooed behind her right ear.  I wondered to myself what was “music to her ears”, perhaps the sound of opening a Big Mac wrapper? I was sad to see this women had two young daughters, both well on their way to continuing the proud American childhood obesity epidemic thanks to mom’s thoughtless guidance.

Mom was actually getting quite annoyed, her food order was not coming out as fast as she wanted.  In fact my order was handed to me before hers which really made her mad.  As I shuffled out of there I heard her chastising an employee behind the counter, wanting to know “What is going on???” Poor woman….

So the McD’s experience at least was a nice distraction from the Miata brake job headache I was in the middle of.  By the time I got home with the brake hardware kit and new pads it was now after 9pm, sheesh.

So my focus was now getting that top caliper bolt completely out on the driver side.  I needed to see what was going on.  Getting the bolt out was ridiculously difficult.  Despite having it turned all the way out on the threads, the smooth part of the bolt was hanging up.  I only got it out after a long grueling battle using a needle nose pliers to apply outward force while continuing to turn it with a socket.

Once I finally got the bolt out I saw why it was such a bastard.  It was bone dry and rusted, two things you don’t want for a caliper bolt.  I used a bunch of caliper grease on the bolt and made love to the bolt hole,  working the bolt back and forth to lubricate the fitting. By the time I was done the bolt once again was able to slide back and forth in the caliper housing as it was designed to do.

I put the driver side back together and then had to redo the passenger side once again, despite it not having a problem.  I didn’t want to have a different type of pads on one side.  I got everything back together and did a final test drive.  This time the brakes grabbed well with no metallic sound aftertaste, finally.  By the time I pulled back into the bug filled garage it was just after 11PM. Whew.

Now I should have gone straight to bed. However for some reason I had a second wind, instead of taking a shower and collapsing on my pillow I instead found myself in front of my computer processing the video from the brake work, which is pretty funny if I do say so myself.  By the time I actually went to bed it was 1AM, craziness.

This weekend has a loose framework, just as I like it.