DiscoStudd
08-07-2004, 05:30 PM
Thought I'd share this with y'all. A couple of weeks ago, the front rotors started warping on the wife's Lumina. I ordered up a set of EB Greenstuff pads from TireRack and bought some Raybestos PG Plus rotors from Checker. Okay, so yesterday I start tearing the brakes apart and I notice the caliper bracket bolts are a bit rusted on the driver's side. I got them off after hosing the bolts with WD40 and using a cheater bar on the end of my "Rat-Shit." I was cursing the previous owner for getting "White Box Special" rotors at first, then for them not using anti-sieze on the caliper bracket bolts. So I get the rotors and pads mounted on the driver's side no problem. Go over to the Passenger side and one of the caliper bracket bolts is stripped (the Torx part, not the threads.) Son of a bitch! :cuss: I get on my bike (cause my wife drove my car to work) and ride over to Checker and NAPA and neither place has the bolts. I called the local Chevy dealer and the parts dept was closed until Monday. So I went over to a junkyard close by and they didn't stock the part either, plus the yard had just closed, so I was SOL.
Went back to said yard this morning and they had probably 3 dozen W bodies and not one of them had the caliper bracket or bolts I needed :cuss: . So I started driving around and the first yard I stopped at had several W's with the brackets and bolts (halle-freakin-lujah! :mrgreen: )
So I get back to the bracket. I got out the ole grinder w/a cutoff wheel and proced to cut the head off of the bolt to see if I could knock it off somehow. No dice. I figured I had to hack up the bracket in order to get it free (good thing I bought a bracket at the J/Y!) I cut that sucker into 4 or 5 different pieces and finally got it free. Yaaaaay!!!
I noticed the Ceramic pads I put on the car over a year ago still had as much beef to the pad as they did when they were new! Now if only the numbnuts that owned the car before me hadn't have used White Box Specials, I could have put off doing a brake job for another year!
Now after bedding in the new pads, the fucker stops on a dime! I think I might have to flush out the brake fluid and/or replace the rubber lines (or perhaps the master cylinder) because the pedal still seems spongier than my Regal does (you just barely press the pedal on that fucker and it'll put you through the windshield...)
So here's a pic of my hacked up caliper bracket:
http://www.likeabigdog.com/random/loomiebrakes.jpg
Went back to said yard this morning and they had probably 3 dozen W bodies and not one of them had the caliper bracket or bolts I needed :cuss: . So I started driving around and the first yard I stopped at had several W's with the brackets and bolts (halle-freakin-lujah! :mrgreen: )
So I get back to the bracket. I got out the ole grinder w/a cutoff wheel and proced to cut the head off of the bolt to see if I could knock it off somehow. No dice. I figured I had to hack up the bracket in order to get it free (good thing I bought a bracket at the J/Y!) I cut that sucker into 4 or 5 different pieces and finally got it free. Yaaaaay!!!
I noticed the Ceramic pads I put on the car over a year ago still had as much beef to the pad as they did when they were new! Now if only the numbnuts that owned the car before me hadn't have used White Box Specials, I could have put off doing a brake job for another year!
Now after bedding in the new pads, the fucker stops on a dime! I think I might have to flush out the brake fluid and/or replace the rubber lines (or perhaps the master cylinder) because the pedal still seems spongier than my Regal does (you just barely press the pedal on that fucker and it'll put you through the windshield...)
So here's a pic of my hacked up caliper bracket:
http://www.likeabigdog.com/random/loomiebrakes.jpg