Small thing , BIG problem , like a damn smallaxe !
As i use Small1Axe as a name tag for reasons that are obvious to me . I am not big , and seemingly without power ore influence , still i am able to chop down a large tree . Not that i ever chopped down a whole tree , some branches and stuff that's all , so you tree admiring steemians out here know , i ain't a lumberjack killing of rain-forest and wildlife .
Last week we did a lot of work on the car to get it ready for a long travel , check my blog for more on that . Last Saturday we had a workshop to fix things like exhaust leak , fuel leaks and more . The back brake pads where delivered to late to work on in the workshop so i decided to do it at home . Theoretically it is an easy job done in a few hours . For real it became a little disaster . How a tiny bit can screw up so much ... AAAAAARG !
For real i am not joking , it's technically even smaller , like in the part it left behind on the car . For non technical readers , this tiny thing is a bleeding nipple from the rear drum breaking system . It functions as a little valve for bleeding the air out of the hydraulic brake system . You'll find 4 of them on any common car .
Yesterday i successfully replaced the brake pads . A brake cylinder popped open and some brake fluid was lost , no biggy , it's always best to bleed the brake system when one replaces the brake pads . As i had put back on the wheels and gave the brakes a try , nothing no brake power what so ever , bummers let's bleed the system . Noticing the nipples where very tight and stuck i soaked them in wd40 . As it was getting late i thought let it be , tomorrow it's a new day full with opportunity .
It's not at all a problem to work outside on a car , i thank global warming for it no matter who caused it , 7 degrees above freezing/melting temp of water with a clear sky sunny day , what could go wrong . So when the ice was melted that had formed on the car over night ( trouble white ) i started to give it a go , unscrew them nipples . Jack under the car , wheel removed for clear access on the search for a tightly fitting tool as a normal seize 7 spanner didn't fit no more due to excessive damage to the nut bit of the nipple . After some fruitless tries and wrecking some tools i found a E12 spanner nut that fitted perfect . By softly tapping it with a hammer it looked like it moved a bit but was probably already twisting by the force i applied . You guess , it snapped of leaving the threaded part stuck in the brake cylinder part . Yeah , what could go wrong ........
So this little piece of equipment became a very big problem as i can't fix brake pressure if i can't bleed the system from air . In short , it an't funny to drive without brakes , especially when one plans to cross the Alps with that car , bummers .
A friend that game by had a bright thought , bleed the system at an other place , like the pressure connection side of the brake cylinder . To bad , that thing is also not giving any movement and will snap of to if we try to hard . We gave it a try to bleed by popping the brake cylinder while pushing the brake peddle . It looked like that worked , but nope , when all assembled again brake fluid was squirting out of the broken nipple . ..... noooooooo , thats no good !
For now i have the only option to remove the whole brake cylinder and fix it or buy a new one , lots of work to fix such a little thing . Well at least i got something to do , and i ain't in a hurry . Might take the thing out today and give it a fix tomorrow as i already am prepared for what i will find when the other brakes need to be depleted from air to .
I felt like making a post about this thing i encounter , and realize i finally made a post using words like nipple , nut and squirting . ;-) .
Any tips on this bug would be nice , already had the thought to flip the car upside down so the brakes become the highest point in the system , making the extraction of air more easy . But no , that's only an option when your stranded in the middle of nowhere .
Thank for reading , stay cool and have a nice day , i am off , blowing off some steam ( nope not this steem ;-) )
Always the one thing on a car that makes for a lot of problems that should not be.
Posted using Partiko Android
I replaced both back suspension back end arms back in jan. 2017 , then i threw away the old ones , they had the brake cylinders still on them ,.... now i wish i had salvaged them .
Better go for safe and buy me new ones for left and right , took one of and it looks bad , fixing the old ones could become a challenging problem coming down the Alps , the Po flat in Italy is large but not a run-off i think ;-)
Yep I have done similar things had old spares laying about for a long time. Decide to throw them out and a couple of weeks later I could have used part's from them🤣.
Posted using Partiko Android