Brake adjuster/Wheel nuts = Stress!
Spyke^
01-31-2005, 01:44 PM
Arrrgh!!
Just wanted to blow off some steam. ( I said steam sicko's :lol: )
A week or so ago I put a new set of snow tires on the back of my Bronco II and moved the back ones to the front.
At nearly this same time I got the truck Inspected ( yahoo nice shiny new good 'till 06 sticker ).
So, here it is,we'll say two weeks later and I'm feeling that I'm using too much front brake so I slide the jack under it and proceed to adjust up the rear drums.
This usually takes me like five minutes max when everything goes well.
It's kinda slow here at work so I figure I'll just give it quick go on my lunch.
Plus it has warmed up to -11 C ( -25 C with the windchill ), mmmm icy.
Drivers side, no problem.
Passenger side, hmmm adjuster seems to be sticking. That's funny cause I had a full set of shoes on both sides put on and the adjusters should have been cleaned and greased.
Oh well, I'll just slip the wheel off and pull the adjuster off and clean her up...
Hmmm looks like my nice shiny wheel nuts are kind of stripped..no, they're hella stripped.
And, it looks like two of them have had the crap shiny covering taken off and now they are just steel.
I kinda laughed at this point as I know that these nuts are a pain and I planned on replacing them in the Spring anyways.
Still would have been nice to know that when I picked the truck up.
So, after fumbling around finding three different sockets to fit over these different sized (stripped,non stripped and steel) lug nuts I find that Joe Mechanic has torqued the nuts on so tight that I am actually spinning the tire with the truck on the ground (using a 1/2 inch drive power handle and socket).
Put her in 1st and continue. Was that vein in my head always there or did it just pop out from the strain?
Many curses later I finally get the wheel off and get at the adjuster and the adjustment wheel is rounded off half the way around. Plus, one of the tabs that holds it to the shoe is broken off....
An amazingly calm phone call informs me that the mechanic couldn't get the drum off to inspect the brakes ( seems the adjuster was "stuck ") even though he just put shoes on it two weeks before..
Turns out, here's the best part he was going the wrong way!! Used to the Chevs where you turn the opposite way. It was still all rusted to hell so it wouldn't have mattered...
Luckily we have a good shop here and I used the torches to weld a new tab on, used the hacksaw to cut new groves in the adjustment wheel as well as retorquing the nuts back on to a tightness where I can get the friggin wheel off if I ever blew a tire.
What an amazing lunch!!
/rant over
Just wanted to blow off some steam. ( I said steam sicko's :lol: )
A week or so ago I put a new set of snow tires on the back of my Bronco II and moved the back ones to the front.
At nearly this same time I got the truck Inspected ( yahoo nice shiny new good 'till 06 sticker ).
So, here it is,we'll say two weeks later and I'm feeling that I'm using too much front brake so I slide the jack under it and proceed to adjust up the rear drums.
This usually takes me like five minutes max when everything goes well.
It's kinda slow here at work so I figure I'll just give it quick go on my lunch.
Plus it has warmed up to -11 C ( -25 C with the windchill ), mmmm icy.
Drivers side, no problem.
Passenger side, hmmm adjuster seems to be sticking. That's funny cause I had a full set of shoes on both sides put on and the adjusters should have been cleaned and greased.
Oh well, I'll just slip the wheel off and pull the adjuster off and clean her up...
Hmmm looks like my nice shiny wheel nuts are kind of stripped..no, they're hella stripped.
And, it looks like two of them have had the crap shiny covering taken off and now they are just steel.
I kinda laughed at this point as I know that these nuts are a pain and I planned on replacing them in the Spring anyways.
Still would have been nice to know that when I picked the truck up.
So, after fumbling around finding three different sockets to fit over these different sized (stripped,non stripped and steel) lug nuts I find that Joe Mechanic has torqued the nuts on so tight that I am actually spinning the tire with the truck on the ground (using a 1/2 inch drive power handle and socket).
Put her in 1st and continue. Was that vein in my head always there or did it just pop out from the strain?
Many curses later I finally get the wheel off and get at the adjuster and the adjustment wheel is rounded off half the way around. Plus, one of the tabs that holds it to the shoe is broken off....
An amazingly calm phone call informs me that the mechanic couldn't get the drum off to inspect the brakes ( seems the adjuster was "stuck ") even though he just put shoes on it two weeks before..
Turns out, here's the best part he was going the wrong way!! Used to the Chevs where you turn the opposite way. It was still all rusted to hell so it wouldn't have mattered...
Luckily we have a good shop here and I used the torches to weld a new tab on, used the hacksaw to cut new groves in the adjustment wheel as well as retorquing the nuts back on to a tightness where I can get the friggin wheel off if I ever blew a tire.
What an amazing lunch!!
/rant over
RickwithaTbird
01-31-2005, 03:02 PM
Thats pretty messed up, but at least you arent like me. I would not have had the tools to do anything about it with, nor would I have known what to do about it. I probably would have never known, at least for a few months.
So someone else did this job for you? Are you going to make them pay for it or anything? I would want them to pay for everything they ruined. But thats just me, because I cant weld stuff back to perfect. And you did all that in one lunch? Sheesh. It would have taken me a day or two to even figure out what to do, then maybe a day or two to fix it lol.
So someone else did this job for you? Are you going to make them pay for it or anything? I would want them to pay for everything they ruined. But thats just me, because I cant weld stuff back to perfect. And you did all that in one lunch? Sheesh. It would have taken me a day or two to even figure out what to do, then maybe a day or two to fix it lol.
imtheoneandonlyD
02-01-2005, 12:31 AM
:iagree:
Spyke^
02-01-2005, 02:26 PM
I usually would have put the shoes on myself but I was also getting a couple of radius arm bushings in so I figured i'd get him to throw the shoes on while he was under there.
This fella is not my usual mechanic as my guy was on vacation when this work needed to be done and I had heard that this guy was good and "cheap".
Lesson learned I guess.
I'm just not going to ever use him again instead of screwing around trying to get paid back. Not worth it.
By the way, don't sell yourself short. I'm sure if someone sat down and showed you how to install a set of shoes you'd catch on pretty quick. Usually there's not much to it.
Once you get the drum off, which thank god was easy as the shoes were way loose, you can easily see where the adjuster was stripped.
You want fun, try and get the drum off with the adjuster stripped/seized and the shoes out against the drum.
Hint, get a BFG..Big Fuckin' Hammer. :lol:
As far as the welding goes it's just a matter of practice.
Brakes work nice now, I hate it when the rears get out of adjustment and you use too much front.
Even though most of your braking is done with the fronts I like a lot of rear to settle her down nice and even.
Don't go too nutty though as locking up the rears when your not expecting it can be "not fun".
This fella is not my usual mechanic as my guy was on vacation when this work needed to be done and I had heard that this guy was good and "cheap".
Lesson learned I guess.
I'm just not going to ever use him again instead of screwing around trying to get paid back. Not worth it.
By the way, don't sell yourself short. I'm sure if someone sat down and showed you how to install a set of shoes you'd catch on pretty quick. Usually there's not much to it.
Once you get the drum off, which thank god was easy as the shoes were way loose, you can easily see where the adjuster was stripped.
You want fun, try and get the drum off with the adjuster stripped/seized and the shoes out against the drum.
Hint, get a BFG..Big Fuckin' Hammer. :lol:
As far as the welding goes it's just a matter of practice.
Brakes work nice now, I hate it when the rears get out of adjustment and you use too much front.
Even though most of your braking is done with the fronts I like a lot of rear to settle her down nice and even.
Don't go too nutty though as locking up the rears when your not expecting it can be "not fun".
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