It's all about the brakes

Saturday was a busy day, in the sense that there was a lot going on, but not in the sense that there was a lot accomplished. At least, not according to plan.

The Plan (for me) was to (1) find out what was wrong with Deb's car, and fix it; and (2) find out what was wrong with Cheryl's car, and fix it; then (3) go to our neighbor's house for a nice dinner.

The Plan (for Cheryl) was (1) to go to Tai Chi; (2) to work on various projects around the house; then (3) go to our neighbor's house for a nice dinner.

The Plan (for Deb) was to (1) show up; (2) start some laundry; (3) go shopping with Mary; (4) fold laundry; then (5) head home to Lola, taking as many of her siblings as possible.

The Plan (for Mary) was (1) get up; (2) get coffee; (3) go shopping with Deb; (4) bake stuff; (5) hang out with Deb and Lola (the cat).

The Plan for Adam was (1) go to bed; (2) sleep; (3) get up; (4) hang out with Deb and Lola (the cat).

My Plan was all set, but it didn't happen as quickly as I had expected because there are some things more important then fixing houses and fixing cars, like spending time with family and sharing silly stories and laughing and having fun together. Once Deb showed up, Deb and Mary started swapping stories about when they were kids, playing with Barbies, and Adam put in his two cents, and I just listened and laughed.

Oh, procrastination can be so much fun!

So my plan was delayed a little bit while we spent the morning telling stories and laughing our heads off and having lots of fun -- and then it was time to get serious and get some work done. So I headed off to the garage to play work with cars and the girls headed off to the mall to do whatever it is that people do when they go to the mall (I used to eat bagels and drink Cream Soda, but that was many many years ago when it was 'cool' to wander around Regency Mall in my Izod shirts, and when I actually used to have brownish hair) where I spent the remainder of the morning/afternoon figuring out that:

Deb's brakes were screeching in reverse because sometimes brakes just like to do that when they aren't quite adjusted correctly, and the only way to adjust them correctly is to put the car in reverse and let the car build up a little speed and then jam on the brakes as hard as possible, which kicks in the auto-adjust feature (I'm not really sure how it works) and then repeat that about five or six times until the screeching goes away. And then hope it doesn't happen any more.

It actually took me quite a while to figure this out because, naturally, my first impulse is to take the wheels off and inspect the brakes and find out exactly what they are doing; unfortunately, there is (apparently) no way to tell if they are adjusted properly by just looking at them. So I put the wheels back on and put the front end of the car up on the lift (thanks again, Dad!) and started the car and put it in reverse and let the wheels start spinning and then jammed on them a few times but that isn't enough to kick in the auto-adjust feature (I surmise) because I couldn't get them to screech but the minute I shut the car off and let it down from the lift and went in reverse, it was no different than when I started. So I went upstairs and did some YouTube research (last refuge of the mechanical moron) and learned about the 'go in reverse and jam on the brakes' method of adjustment, and gave it a try.

Worked like a charm.

Deb had finished her plan by the time I finished the 'adjustment', so she headed home to wait for her siblings to show up. And I started working on car #2.

I thought this one was going to be a stumper because I've been chasing this issue since before the first time Cheryl went down to Texas and haven't been able to figure it out. But this time, the problem had gotten so consistent that the issue was obvious this time: the brake caliper piston was frozen up and wouldn't go back to its non-activated position once pressure was removed from the pedal. [Part of the test procedure is to pull the caliper off and push the piston back to the de-activated position and then press the pedal to confirm piston travel-and-return; it had always worked fine before, but now refused to de-activate.] The solution is simple: order the part on-line from NAPA, drive up there before they close, pick up the part (and leave the core), then install the new part and continue with normal life.

So I ordered the part on-line and drove up to the store and picked it up (they know me quite well up there because I've redone all the brakes on all the cars over the last two years) and came home again and installed the new caliper just in time to get ready for our dinner with the neighbors.

So both cars were working fine and we had a wonderful (and filling) time at our friends' house, eating and talking and singing (yes, there was a sing-a-long!) and then went home to do all the last-minute Saturday night getting-ready-for-Sunday things that we always do.