Post toe, brake marathon, 10, Possible, slow end, mapping
Cindy emerged from the operating room quickly on Thursday, around 9:30. She did so in an extremely silly and loopy manner thanks to the propethol they used to sedate her for the procedure. The doctor said they removed another large chunk of ingrown nail and then burned the area with acid as opposed to using a suture. Despite the work only being done on her toenail, Cindy’s entire foot was wrapped all the way to the ankle.
While they got her ready to check out I was sent downstairs to get the supplies they prescribed to her including antibiotics, pain meds and bandages, lots and lots of bandages. It was so much stuff that it filled a large shopping bag. Just like the rest of the VA hospital the pharmacy area was big, modern and efficient. They wheeled Cindy out as required and we loaded her into the Prius.
Once we got home I had to be vigilant in trying to make Cindy take it easy. Despite just having surgery she wanted to do work around the house. I had to basically strap her down to let me go out and clean the chicken coop and run. She did rest some during the day but not as much as I think she should have.
During the afternoon I made a run to the local AutoZone store. I was picking up front brake rotors and pads for Cindy’s daughters 2010 Mustang. She said the brakes felt bad with pedal pulsation which means at a minimum the rotors are warped. I have replaced the front brakes on three or four different vehicles at this point. After watching a video briefly on YouTube it looked like doing the same on a Mustang should not be a big deal. I figured I could knock it out Friday morning.
So before Katie showed up Friday morning I got the weeding done in the yard and prepared the garage for active work. I pulled out all the tools I imagined I would need including my video camera. Amateur auto mechanic videos are among the most popular on my YouTube channel. Katie showed up around nine and I got started wrenching before 10 am. The front brake pads were worn but not horribly so. I started with the passenger side. I didn’t see anything that would necessarily have caused the rotors to warp. However that changed when I got to the driver side.
When I pulled the caliper pins on that side I immediately noticed one of them was dry and sticking. They are supposed to slide easily back and forth allowing the brake pads to move against and off the rotors. I was pretty sure I identified why the pedal was pulsating. The sticking bolt could cause the pad pressure to stay on the rotor even when not braking which would heat/warp it. Cleaning the pin and applying caliper grease solved that problem.
After putting everything back together I took the car out for a road test. The brake pedal pulsation was gone but the stopping power still didn’t seem as good as it should be. I decided since I have all the tools out I should just replace the rear brake pads as well. The Stang has rear disc brakes, something I never worked on before but I assumed it would be no different than doing the front brakes. I jumped in the SSR and headed back to AutoZone for the second time in as many days.
I pulled a back wheel and got busy on what I thought would be a 30 minute pad swap. When I popped out the old pads I saw it was a very good thing I decided to replace them. There was a small fraction of an inch of braking material left. No wonder the car wasn’t stopping well. Things went fine until I got to the part of the procedure where you need to compress the caliper piston. You compress the piston to make room to get around the new brake pads which will always be thicker than the worn pads you pull out.
The way I have always done this with front brakes is to use a C clamp and an old brake pad to push the piston in. It is normally quite easy. Well for some reason the rear piston would not retract. At first I thought it was just stiff as I tried multiple times with the C clamp at different positions. It would not budge. I then thought that possibly the rear caliper was defective which lead my mind down annoying scenarios where I would have to replace the entire caliper which was an area I was not comfortable with.
In total I bet I futzed around trying to compress that piston for close to an hour, getting continually more frustrated as each minute passed by. I finally decided to take an additional step in trouble shooting. I put the wheel back on the driver side and jacked up the opposite side of the car and pulled the wheel. I then pulled the pads and caliper and again tried to compress the piston with the C clamp. Again, it would not budge. I then realized this was likely not a caliper problem but a knowledge problem on my part. I was missing something. I went inside to my computer to do a search on rear caliper problems.
In less than 30 seconds I saw that many rear calipers require to be turned in and can not be pressed in. This has something to do with the dual function rear brakes share being used for conventional braking and the emergency brake. When I looked at the rear pistons I noticed they appeared different with two slots in them which I thought nothing of until I got on the computer. Those slots are what are used to rotate the caliper using a special tool. I realized I was going to have to make ANOTHER AutoZone trip to complete the job, something I was not happy about in the least.
I picked up a small ratchet attachment that looked like a dice cube. Each of the 6 sides had a different configuration which worked with different styles of brakes. Once I got back home I slapped the cube on the ratchet and got busy. Turning in the caliper required a considerable amount of strength as you had to apply major inward pressure while rotating the caliper clockwise. The little nubs on the cube easily popped out of the slots on the piston if you did not keep it pressed very hard against it. Finally after a lot of grunting, pressing and twisting I had the caliper fully retracted into the body. After doing so I was able to finally proceed with the pad replacement which went ok.
So after putting everything back together I took the car out for another test drive. It did not feel right, the pedal was too soft. I knew why. When I was originally fcking with the first rear caliper piston one of the things I tried was opening the bleeder screw, thinking it would relieve whatever pressure I was feeling. (it didn’t) I assumed that by doing so I sucked some air into the system. At this point I had spent hours on the brake work and was very frustrated. Obviously I needed to get it right despite my desire to jut call it quits for the day. I hoped I could reach the bleeder screw with the wheel on but a quick glance confirmed I would need to jack the car up and pull the wheel AGAIN.
Once I got the car back up in the air I called Cindy out to help me with the bleeding process. As I opened the bleeder screw with a tube attached I had her slowly apply brake pedal pressure. As she did I instantly saw air bubbles filling the tube at first but it quickly turned to all fluid which is what I hoped. If I wanted to be super thorough or had a hydraulic lift in my garage I would have pulled all four wheels and bled them. I was hoping that bleeding the only caliper that was opened up would be sufficient. A quick road test confirmed it was, the brakes felt firm and strong, finally.
I did not finish cleaning up and going back inside until around 6:30 PM. If I did the same job today, knowing about the pitfalls I fell into I could do the same work in probably a third of the time. Cindy told Katie the car was done so she brought back the Tacoma which we let her borrow for the day. She was very thankful for my efforts and equally happy Cindy and I gave the car a much needed quick cleaning both on the interior and exterior.
Friday night I really felt like I earned my pizza and Mexican Coke. We enjoyed it while watching Chappie, my latest Netflix rental. I really wanted to see this movie in the theater when it was out. I was surprised when I saw it didn’t do great at the box office. I was more surprised after watching it, I thought the movie was very good although it was odd seeing a mullet wearing Hugh Jackman play the bad guy. I’d give the film a strong A- rating.
On Saturday I got up and outside early, starting weed whacking the grass shortly after 8AM. I wanted to get the labor out of the way early if possible. Cindy and I then headed out to grab even more sand for the chicken run as well as some more bags of rubber mulch to fill in various areas the chickens have been kicking out. After spreading both after returning home my only other project for the day involved cutting up some plastic cutting boards to be used as a top shelf on the chickens perch. Cindy had some thinner plastic up there but it was too flexible, allowing it to bend down and deposit poop along the wall. Our hope is using cutting boards in that spot till make it more rigid and easier to clean. I cut them on my portable table saw.
Over the weekend one of the things I did in between projects was upgrading both my computer and Cindy’s to Windows 10. I was surprised just how smoothly the process went, I really had no issues at all. The new OS combines the best features of Windows 7 and 8. So far I am very happy with the upgrade and am still digging into some of the new features like Cortana and the Edge web browser. The system boot up and shut down speed seems even faster as well. Thank goodness someone at Microsoft realized people actually like the Start Menu. Taking it away was like forcing people to steer a car with their feet.
On Saturday night Cindy and I went to see the latest Mission Impossible movie. I have liked every Mission Impossible film. Hell I have enjoyed pretty much any movie Tom Cruise ever does. The latest MI kept the streak alive. It combined smart action, suspense, and story telling. I have no problem giving it an A- rating all day long.
On Sunday morning Cindy was not able to consider biking with her toe surgery but I had hopes of getting out on the road. When I looked out the window the skies looked gray and menacing so I scrapped the idea, despite knowing I would probably regret it. If I don’t get some sort of significant exercise in over a weekend I feel like a bum. Late in the morning I tried to fill that void by going in the bar park and doing four rounds of short circuit involving push ups, hanging knee raises, and pull ups. I was surprised how low energy, uninspired and weak I felt during the mini-workout. It shows on film.
The vast majority of my Sunday was spent geeking out in WoW, another thing that can bring on feelings of guilt. Sure I had done significant amounts of work the prior 3 days but all it takes is one day filled with primarily screwing off to erase that in my mind and make me feel lazy.
Late in the day Cindy and I sat down to map out a day by day tentative schedule for the road trip. It includes two days for both Yellowstone Park and Vegas. Both destinations could easily demand more time but we have to work it in with 6100 miles of travel by road. The way things are mapped now we would have 12 nights and 13 days of travel which allows us exactly one day of slack if something comes up. My goal is to spend no more than we did last year on the road trip. I’m not sure if that is possible or not since there are a couple extra days and more feature destinations this time around.