Monday, September 15, 2008

Brake Break

The first day of my two day brake break is coming to a close. All in all it was a success.

I have rebuilt and reinstalled the Calipers. As expected, it was a giant pain in the ass. The pistons were frozen in place. I had to break down the calipers and put them in the vise. With the pistons clamped in the vise, I hammered the body of the caliper back an forth a bazillionth of an inch back and forth. Add WD40, repeat for hours. The first one took over four hours to tear apart, clean up, hone the cylinder, reassemble, and reinstall.

Luckily, the second only took a couple of hours. So I have accomplished step one of the plan. Tomorrow I bleed the brakes, and see if I can do the water pump.

The only complication I see is that I am hurtin' tonight. A couple of muscles have staged a rebellion, and are threatening to revolt. A couple of beers ought to shut them the hell up, but I don't know how they will be in the morning.

It willl probably take me a while to limber up, but I do plan to get back at it.

Maybe you wonder why the hell I do this. First of all, machinery doesn't lie. It is straighforward, it does what it is designed for. It may be a challenge to understand what the heck it is supposed to do, but once you figure it out it is completely predictable. I love the figuring out part. To me, a project like Frankenhealey is a big three dimension puzzle. Before I got the car, I knew nothing about the car. I had seen a couple on the road, but knew nothing about the Marque. To me, it has been a lot of fun, figuring out what makes it tick, fixing some things, improving some. If I just paid someone else to do the work, it wouldn't be the same.

When I am done, there will be a sense of ownership and pride. The car will be uniquely mine. I will take it to shows, drive it on nice days, and have a great feeling of accomplishment.

2 comments:

sue said...

I understand completely. I admire people like you (and my Hubs and youngest son) who can look at something mechanical and make it work... sometimes fabricating the part to do so! I am in awe of your genius.

Of course, Hubs always says he doesn't "do wood"... don't expect him to put a nail in anyting. Bookshelf? Nah... better find a carpenter for that. LOL.

Al said...

Sue: I was explaining to one of the guys at work about how I was going to make a special tool for the water pump, and he was flabbergasted that I could and would do such a thing.