(written on April 3rd and 5th from notes)
I woke up so. many. times. last night. I probably only got a few hours of sleep, if that much.
But I guess that’s to be expected, as I purposely chose not to have my headphones in with my noise maker sounds playing (I wanted to be able to hear if someone knocked on my window).
I walked into the store the moment they unlocked the front door, and having already decided not to buy rotors (I felt like the little bit of ground off rotor wasn’t enough to worry about), I asked the attendant for just a cheap set of pads. Gratefully, as anticipated, they did have the brake pads I needed in stock. 🙏
When I asked about guide pin grease, I think the attendant said that they don’t actually carry any.
That might explain what I experienced a bit later… 😅
Fortunately, the parts guy was able to find me a grease that was rubber safe, and when I later checked the written details on the back, it did mention that the grease was suitable for “brake parts,” so I think I’m good. 🤞
There was a Bunnings just a block or two away from the Repco, and I figured that might be a decent enough place to do my brake job, so I headed that way.
Just before I got there, I saw some dedicated parallel parking spots on the narrow street between the Bunnings and another building. The setup was such that neither side of the road had parking or entrances. It almost felt like an alley and was definitely a place I felt comfortable working on the side of the road with little concern that anyone would care that I was there.
So I pulled over, parked, and got to work.
Brake pads and guide pin grease? Check. Scissor jack? Check. Lug wrench? Check. Screwdriver, sockets, and ratchet? Check. Jack stand? …nice wish. 😅
Gratefully, I got the lug nuts loosened without it much of an issue at all, the van jacked up off the ground, the wheel off, and the caliper removed in relatively decent time.
After removing the caliper, I found that the lower guide pin was partially seized. 😒
Ugh. 😒
Why can’t people just do the job right?
[sigh]
I was able to get the guide pin to turn slightly at first, but then… Nothing. It was completely stuck.
Gratefully, I’d bought a can of WD-40 a good while back in the hopes of breaking free the rusty shift cable fastening nut; so I squirted a bunch of WD-40 inside the guide pin boot and crossed my fiiiingers… aaaaaand…
Movement! 🥳
Being able to get the guide pin to spin all the way around meant that, almost certainly, I was going to be able to get it out.
But it certainly wasn’t easy.
After maybe 10-15 minutes of fighting with it, twisting and twisting and twisting, and finally twisting and pulling at the same time, I was able to get it out.
Bone dry.
And thickened with a hardened residue that I had to scrape off with a flathead screwdriver.
I hate brake jobs. 😆
I spent a good long time cleaning out the old residue from the pin boots and slots, and then, despite several years of working as a mechanic and doing brake jobs, over greased the guide pins, which made a mess and made things take a whole lot longer.
I swear I’m guide-pin-grease impaired. 😆
Reminds me of my first BYU English professor’s comment that I was comma impaired (I used commas absolutely everywhere there was a conceivable pause instead of where punctuation rules dictated).
I actually loved that teacher. After taking his class, I wanted to be an English teacher. That desire didn’t last very long in the short run, but funny that I would find myself teaching writing and English just a few years later at both the university and high school levels.
🐿️
Without a torque wrench, I just gave the bolts and lug nuts some hugga duggas and called it good.
In the process of doing the job, I found that the brake pad’s little metal warning clip that screeches when it’s time to get your brakes changed was bent nearly 180° backwards, as if someone had purposefully bent it to keep it from making the warning sound. 😶
🤔
🤷
Gratefully, no one had been topping off the brake fluid, so I didn’t have to worry about it spilling out when I compressed the caliper, and gratefully, the caliper had compressed easily. 🙏
A pretty hefty surprise was on the horizon. A good one. 😁
As I drove away from my little parallel parking spot, my brakes felt a little different, and when I pressed on them, they jerked hard.
Waaaaaaait… what?!
My squishy brake pedal was gone!
How the…
Wow, that’s the first time I’ve ever experienced stuck guide pins as the cause of a squishy brake pedal. Maybe that’s just because I always got my hands on the vehicles after the massive destruction had already been done, so the repair solved the problem that I didn’t even know was there. 🙃
Who knows. 🤷
But having the brakes fully functional is a huge deal. I’ve been driving around with unsafe brakes for five months, compensating in the way that I drove.
Not a positive selling point. 😅
But now my heater is all better, and my brakes are working great… This is fantastic! 🥳
That just leaves the badly bubbling rust on the roof next to the sunroof and the rattle on start up.
I made such a poor choice buying this van. 😅
I mean… it hasn’t been awful. I’ve had several issues with it, though none so serious as to sideline me. The main thing is that I paid far too much for what I got, and I’ll be lucky if I even get half of what I paid for it.
Heck, I might be lucky to get a third. 😅
The rust on the roof could be a coffin nail. We’ll see.
Anyway, after driving away, I decided it was time to get my Lord of the Rings on, so I made my way over to the Gardens of Isengard (locally known as Harcourt Park).
Before exploring the place, I got all my tools and whatnot back out and changed the brake pads on the other side (I hadn’t changed the brake pads on the driver side because I was parked on the street, and it wouldn’t have been very safe. Having changed the side that was causing additional damage, I figured I would drive somewhere else to finish the job.). The pads on the other side, at least the inner pad, wasn’t long for this world either, so it was a good thing that I stopped elsewhere to finish the job.
While I was working on the driver’s side pads, a misty Pacific Northwesty rain was falling. Gratefully, it wasn’t enough to really get you wet, just enough to get everything damp. 🙏
Just like the passenger’s side, the lower guide pin bolt was partially seized on the driver’s side as well.
😒
Fortunately, I had my strategy down pat after my efforts dealing with the passenger’s side, so this side didn’t take me nearly as long to get done. 🙏
After finishing up the brake job, I wandered around the park trying to identify the areas in the park that had been used for filming.
It actually took watching multiple YouTube videos for me to be able to identify the portions of the park and the scenes they corresponded to.
It’s a totally useless and meaningless endeavor, but it’s still fun. 🙃
While I was working on my brakes, I realized that my rear tires were pretty much shot, one of them with the internal metal wires starting to show. 😅
Sooooo… my date with car troubles for the day wasn’t done. I hopped online and found a local tire shop that had good reviews, drove over, and ordered some tires.
He didn’t have the tires I needed in stock, but he called a local courier who said he could have the tires I needed within a couple of hours. 🙏
It wasn’t going to be cheap, by any means, but at least it would get done, so I wandered over to nearby Whakatiki Park to kill time, veging out for a fair bit, and then headed back.
I got a little nervous when I watched the mechanic try to jack my van up from places that it… probably shouldn’t have been jacked up from. 😅
I gently made the suggestion that on this particular van, I thought he was going to need to jack it up from the sides.
At first, he said no, he didn’t need to, that it was better in the back, but after failing multiple times to get it jacked up from the rear high enough to get the tires off the ground, he quietly moved the jack to the side. 🙃
I didn’t have the stomach to check to see if he did damage where he was trying to jack it up from. 😬
It was a little pricier than I would have expected. I think these are like 20,000 or 30,000 km tires. 😶
That’s… nothing.
I guess the average tire wear rating for tires in New Zealand is like 40,000 kilometers. 😶
Not even our worst tires in the states are rated for that few, and especially to be priced like American tires. His shop was highly rated, and one of the commenters said that his prices were the best they found. So… Is what it is. He got me going quickly. 🙏
Next stop on my list was Rivendell. 😁
Fun to walk the woods where some of the scenes were filmed. Crazy it’s been more than 20 years. 😶
From Rivendell, I figured my best bet for the night was to head over to Lake Wairarapa. That’s the lake I stayed at the night before getting on the ferry to head south back in December.
Man, time flies. 🤯
I stopped off to take some pictures on the mountain pass, remembering how sketchy it was to come down that same pass with my brakes as squishy as they were and my low gear is not working on my transmission. 😅
It was nice to have both brakes that were working well and a transmission that could properly downshift. 🙏
I’ve definitely hit the off season. The freedom-camping place here at Lake Wairarapa was packed last time. This time I was one of maybe… five? vehicles in a huge area.
Definitely nicer when less crowded. 😁
I was pretty tired from lack of sleep, but I still did my normal wind down/veg before crashing.
Weird to be back in the North Island.
I don’t like the feeling of running out of time here. 🥺
Oh well…
Lift the world.
Bring it on.
~ stephen
Lift the World 