Mr. Head

Dave pulled through for me again! FYI: if anyone is looking for OEM maintenance items/parts, dave is definately the guy to go through. Practically Next day delivery.

On to the fun...Due to Christians busy schedual, he forgot to leave the rear caliper tool outside for me to pick up. So.....i had to pick a generic tool up from Pep Boys...that's right, let the fun begin.

All told, the whole job only took me 1hr 30min from wheels up to wheels down. The problem was that the generic "4 wheel disk brake tool" from Pep Boys was just a 3/8 inch ratchet attachment.

Since I have never done a rear brake job just yet, i approached it with a bit of skepticism.

I got the car in the air and pulled the wheel, unbolted the caliper and popped what was left of the passenger side pads (< 2mm) and proceeded to use the Generic tool the way i thought i was supposed to...I used my 3/8 inch rachet with 3 inch extension to rotate the Caliper piston face clockwise...It was a bit difficult to turn at first, but i got the hang of it.

However after 15 min or so of turning the piston i really started to get frustrated. It wasnt backing into the caliper very quickly. More turning, and right about the time my arm was about to fall of i decided to try to rotate the piston and push the hell out of it at the same time....VOILA!!!

Freaking piston retracted in less than 15 seconds!

Upon realizing that little tidbit, i was able to complete the passenger side (1 hr) and move onto the drivers side (15 min). Yep that's right 15 min once i knew what I was doing. I lightly torqed each wheel down (car was still in the air) and took the car off of the floor jacks.

Next step was to seat the pads to the new rotors, but i had to take a shower to wash all the brake dust off...
********

Fresh out of the shower, i'm just up and ready do seat these pads in. So off i go, slowly bringing the pads up to temp driving up and down alafaya, and once they warm up i begin to do quicker and quicker stops from very slow to very quick from about 30 mph with 5 min breaks to cool the brakes. after about 20 min of that i moved onto 408 to do stops from 80 very slow to very quick to heat the brakes up a lot. After the brakes were really heated up i turned around at Rouse and drove all the way to research park without touching the brakes to allow them to cool all the way down.

By this time i started to notice a bit of vibration. I and i'm like what the heck, must be the wheels.....OH ****.....


Who wants to guess what i forgot to do?





















anyone....


















anyone......









































Buler?















Yep, in my haste to go seat my pads after my nice warm comfy shower, I totally forgot to completely torque my rear lugs down. I was driving at 80+ MPH performing a few rapid stops and more than a couple slow stops for over a half hour! I was half way between rouse and alafaya when i realized this and limped my way back to waterford. I was scared ****less that one of my wheels was going to fall off....


But alas, all was well and i made it back home nice and safe...

Lesson of the day: Allways finish up before taking that nice warm comfy shower. It will screw you over!!!

de (-eeez_nutz)

You have a lug wrench and jack in your trunk, don't you?