Today I am an idiot because...

...I finally looked at the back drums on my back up car that have been making terrible screeching noises that get even worse when I use the brakes. I've put off changing them because I've been waiting for my mechanic buddy to have some free time, I've never done drum brakes.

I looked at 'em the other day and the disks are ripped as hell and the pads are gone and the metal backing is almost gone too, a bit longer and I would have lost a cylinder if I haven't already.

That's when I realized, these are NOT drum brakes. These are just disks which I can do in my sleep and blindfolded. (Well, until I get to that one nut that takes 3 hours to get out because of age/rust...but that's just working on cars)

It's also the ones I've had the parts for sitting in my garage for over the last 2 years in a box that I never opened or else I would have seen it then.

Figured I'd just open a thread for when I do idiotic things, save space that way rather than start a new thread each time. If anyone else has any fun brainfarts they want to share/get off their chest feel free.

I'm gonna go tear some wheels off my VW and do something I should have a long time ago, and I'm gonna using the, "You're such a fucking idiot Hayden!", mantra as I do the job.

 

I don't know if I should feel stupider or smarter, but it turns out the rear brakes are NOTHING like what I expected. They wheel bearing was inside the rotor housing and had to come off to take off the rotor, but I has not the tools to put it back together so I'm stuck waiting for my mechanic friend anyways and my wife is a bit annoyed she had to park outside in the rain.

Tomorrow I'm gonna try my car's bad rear brake, at least I think i know what I'm doing on that one. <sigh>

Gratuitous picture, the rusty pile/bits is the splash shield that goes behind the rotor. It literally disintegrated as I tried to adjust it or touched it so I tore it off.

 

Yeah, probably. LOL

My friend came by. No biggy. Need some bearing kits and it won't be bad, he has the stuff to put 'em back together.

Big thing is the ABS tonal ring. It's that veined/slotted thing going around the main shaft, it's not part of the rotor it's somehow connected on and we either gotta get new ones or figure out how to get them off...and it took us 16 minutes to determine they weren't part of the rotor so it may be tough. LOL

We'll fix it, it'll get better. I've been panicking about it a LOT less since I fixed the rear caliper glide pin on my Infiniti. Having my car back makes it a whole lot less urgent, plus the side of the garage it is on just had the garage door spring break so I'll have to replace that before my wife can use that bay again anyways.

 

Found out that the HDD I got my son isn't SATA but rather SAS which I've never ever dealt with before and I didn't find out until I had his computer apart and actually opened the package to put the drive in and I couldn't figure out why the connectors were all wrong. :/

Just ordered this adapter, gonna find out if his SATA supports SAS or not. (I think so, Gigabyte 990FX)

 

It did not, returned the SAS and got a SATA and it's all better now. This next one I just posted up on Facebook just happened, not sure if it's stupid or not but it's bloody me through and through. LOL

 

BTW - Groo came by yesterday to appraise the situation and make sure I'd gotten all the right bits, he's on his way over now with a few useful tools and we're going to take the calipers off and rebuild 'em then replace the bearings/rotors and get the brakes and wheels on. Oh, gonna try and unseize the handbrake too. Apparently it's been stuck on for years.

As a bonus I include an original sketch of our basketball net poolside mounting system for my garbage picked basketball net using I think 1 stick of unistrut and MAXIMUM EFFORT!

 

Found out unistrut is not as cheap as it used to be and I wanna figure out now what to use to make the base on the super cheap. This is where the stupid begins....

 

No, Groo as in Groove as in my friend and fellow surviving veteran of the great acid wars of the 80s Jeff.

Here's him showing me how to pack the bearings on the rear rotor of the Cabrio the other day.

 

Oooh, you mean you're getting a new cat! Congratulations!

 

Just got done with the final rough work of getting the pool cleaned out, vacuumed out the deep end since I could see all the leaves. Pool is totally clear of debris now and is pretty clear period, just gotta get the chlorine up a bit and she'll be good. To get the fear out of the way I tested the heater and I am ridonkulously pleased to say that it seems to be working just fine! (It still doesn't have an LCD display so I have no clue what it's set to, but it's making the water warmer so good enough.)

Here's a quick selfie I sent to the wife as proof of effort/playing with puppy and for bonus the garbage picked net and the existing bolts at the deep end. (The brick are on them to prevent a painful puppy accident)

Oh, and TOO HOT OUT!!!

 

Lets you raise/lower the basket a bit, which also messes with the distance it is from the pole. We aren't sure if we're gonna cut it short and keep the functionality or just lock it in place to make it easier.

I swear every other house in our subdivision has a similar type hoop in their driveway with about a half dozen sandbags piled on the base. I have a feeling that's the weak point.

I'm still trying to figure out a way to make the base creatively using no monies since I don't have any. Latest thought was to use the extra pole to build the base out of, but it's a bit on the flimsy side. Not sure, might check it out today but everytime I go out back Buffy just shoots out the door and I end up just playing with her in the pool/yard for a few hours since she won't let me do anything else. I can't leave her in the house when my wife isn't here or she'll go nuts barking and trying to get attention to go out back and play, hell even if my wife is here I can't go out without her wanting to.

Ok, so I can't do pretty much anything without someone to run puppy interference for me and my daughter can't since she watches all the cats upstairs and my son is a bit of a prick about it and won't. "I don't like how she barks at/treats the older dogs so I'm not gonna reward her by playing with her!", I DON'T EITHER! But unless you play with her and get her energies out she's gonna find things to get her energy out on, and going to try and get other dogs to play isn't like she's being mean even if it can have unintended bad consequences. Our other dogs are almost 15 and walking can be hard some days, a dog twice their size who keeps wanting to play but can flatten them by just putting a paw on them isn't the best combo.

It's getting better, Buffs is calming down and she's 100% definitely bonded to me. That's part of the problem, she's jealous if I give attention to anyone/thing over her including our other dogs, cats, my kids, and sometimes even my wife. <le sighy>

Thanks for letting me babble about it here, saves all sorts of grief with the family.

 

Wait, the lever...

THAT'S IT!!!

If I undo the lever and top bit bolted to the pole I could just swivel the pole to a horizontal and drill a hole in it to align with the first bolt and run it past the other two and plate it down. Run a straight pipe/plate between the uppy/downy bit to make it all firm and locked in place, then use the side supports and run them to the back bolts to anchor for a 3 point stabilizer!

Thanks Dav, the exact right question at the exact right time! Sorry if my post here doesn't make sense yet, but it does to me and it'll hopefully be enough to remind me of what I was thinking of later. I gotta go cook.

 

The handle! That'll be the straight brace, perfect!

Thanks again Dav!!