Stop it

I knew my front brakes needed new pads. The rolling Steel Tent hadn’t been stopping as briskly. Besides, the last time a repair shop worked on the van they told me it was about time for new pads. I agreed but was tight on money at the time.

Since I’ve been hanging around Port Townsend for a while, and might be here a few more days, I looked into getting the pads replaced. An independent shop couldn’t even look at it for another two weeks. I went next door to a tire retailer. They insisted they conduct a complete system check (free) so they’d know whether more than pads would be necessary (and so they can try to talk me into more repairs than necessary). Okay, if it’ll move things along.

While I was in the customer waiting area, breathing whatever off-gasses from new tires, I recalled the conversation with a van dwelling friend. “Could do this myself. I did the rears several years ago. It’s just that I don’t have a floor jack, jack stands, or a torque wrench like I did then. I could make do, but…”

They came back with their list of stuff and the estimate: $749.00. Um, no thank you.

So I walked across the parking lot to an auto parts store and got some $46.00 pads. Then I went to a hardware store and bought a large C-clamp I knew I’d need. $14.00. I found a good spot in a beach parking lot and went to work.

Here are the old pads. New ones are about three-eighths of an inch thick, and there’s a groove in the middle that, as you can see, had worn completely away on one pad. These are about a sixteenth of an inch thick, and I think part of that is the adhesive that sticks the friction material to the steel backing plate. Yeah, time to replace them.

I had the wheels off and the old pads out when I encountered a problem. I couldn’t figure out how to get one of the new pads in. I had gotten the old one out easy as pie, but it was thinner because it was worn out. After several minutes of struggling and cursing , and with some commiseration from the afore-mentioned friend, and having considered doing something that would have opened up a whole can of fanged poisonous worms, I found the magic angle and the pad slipped right in.

Then it was time to put the C-clamp to work. The hydraulic pistons in the caliper that squeeze the pads against the disk stick out more and more as the pads get thinner. They need to be pushed back into the caliper so they can fit over the new thick pads. No one’s hands are strong enough to do that. The pros use a special tool. I had the C-clamp. It was slow but it worked.

I got everything back together and tightened as much as I could with a two-foot wrench. The only leftover parts were the old pads. That’s a good sign. I fired up the Rolling Steel Tent, rolled forward and, yes, the brakes worked — like new. I drove faster; still worked. New brakes for a fraction of the cost. Plus I earned enough bonus Man Points for Tim Allen and Mike Rowe to come add a star to my Man Card.