Brakes Done...and other stuff

Monday...put the National Park Pass in the Jeep when I left in the morning.




Drove the Jeep to the office, yep the rack whistles at highway speeds. I'll try slapping some duct tape over the Barricade cut out, hoping that's the whistle. I can live with it if not.



Lordy what a week. Only went to the office Monday. Here I'm testing stuff to make sure only particular IPs are allowed access to one our sites, rest get a Sorry Page.

Tue-Wed I really just felt fatigued; work was fine but no energy for Jeep things. Thursday used the 25" bar and got the caliper bolt loosened.


Saturday Morning, OK time to get serious.



Holy Fucknuckles...

The guide pin was so seized it broke before rotating -- these aren't threaded, they're smooth sided pins that should be lubed!

AND THIS WAS THE GOOD SIDE!!!

Had pads from NAPA, but off to O'Reilly since they had rebuilt calipers in stock. Buying the entire thing was just as cheap as buying the bracket, slide pins, and boots individually (without the main body either!).

Of course I'm a bit time pressed, really didn't want to get into bleeding brakes...so I just put on the brackets for today.

It'll be a good cool weather job to replace the caliper body and give the brakes a good flush this fall.




No photo, but I adjusted both parking brakes out to the point you kind of had to give the rotor a good push to seat on, instead of freely sliding.



My bag of goodies for the project...





Took it out for a test drive, finding some really steep roads to test the parking brake.

...and it sucked.

Was able to find some directions for holding back a tab by the lever while pulling on it which definitely helped but didn't make it 100%. Consensus online seems to be they just suck. I may try a new lever mechanism when I get home -- relatively cheap ($85) to give it a try. There is a clutch mechanism that is supposed to help improve leverage / keep cable taught or something like that. Maybe mine is just particularly weak?

While out and about, saw they put up a new sign at the CL&P land along Day Street:



Daylilles were late this year, but a lot of them. The Deer eating them last year probably helped -- Mother Nature's version of dead-heading. This one is particularly late!



Normally by this point I think I'm down to just these late yellow daylillies by the mailbox. I think the orange striped ones are usually done.

Bottom to Top on the Jeep...

'twas a day that went from the bottom to the top :)

Wanted to put conical washers over the exposed skid bolts; discovered that most of them already had damage and the ones I could get a socket to fit basically laughed at my Milwaukee impact.

Decided not to break out the heavy artillery. This project will have to wait; I'll also try to find the size (length) of the bolts and have new ones ready so I can replace one at a time.






At least once I tackle the project again, the conical washers will work with 19mm sockets easily.




In the afternoon I headed up to Eric's -- deal was he had to do the roof part of installing the roof rack for the Moab trip.

Morning was muggy. 1pm-ish in full sun it was downright brutal as I got the trailer hooked up and loaded -- the rack wouldn't fit inside the Jeep.

On the way up to Charlton I could see strong thunderstorms, though I fortunately missed most of the rain.

One more round of storms brushed us in the afternoon, after which the air became super dry and awesomely pleasant.



Scott bought a Jeep to tow behind an RV -- and we were comparing. He has more lift, smaller tires and it works out the tail lights end up at the same height.




Had to unhook the trailer to install the rack. Just gonna leave it up at Eric's till I get back rather than take time futzing with it.




Rack clears the Sunrider easily.




Few pics from Oxford and Putnam on the way home...just absolutely gorgeous perfect weather after the storms moved through.

Garage Saturday...

Weirdest darn thing...since last Thursday haven't had much of an appetite and sort of the runs but not quite. Which can happen if I'm not eating a lot too. Even this week didn't really do anything T-We-Th because after noon time my insides felt like I'd have a diarreah, I had rumbles, my butt was clenching, but by laying down I didn't have to go and in the morning would feel fine and poop normal. Sigh.

Friday too. At least Saturday so far all day and things seem to be returning to normal, still not much of an appetite.

So Friday at noon time I did manage to begin wiring in the new outlets.



Would've preferred circular lugs, but this is all I had on hand that would fit.



Wiring in a low-voltage cut off. Do need to pull it out and turn it up so it turns off sooner.




Adding shrink tube over the solder seals just for belts and suspenders...one size of tube I had was too small, next size up I had was too large; shrank fine around the middle but I used a bit of tape on the ends.





Got the dash cam installed :)





So this is all that leaked in the ~week the Jeep has been parked here. Can feel fluid near the fill with my pinky, so I'm OK with this for the trip.




This...is another issue. So the inside rear brakepad is wearing faster than the outer. It will fine for the trip, but the slides likely need lubing (and new pads).

The bigger issue is I wanted to adjust the parking brake. I couldn't break the bolt for the caliper, and the access port is sort of behind it.
I'll try tomorrow to see if I can get an angle at the access port; I tested the parking brakes this afternoon and they definitely positively need adjusting before the trip. I was hoping to avoid taking off the caliper before the trip since that bolt is so hard, I don't want to risk breaking something. I suspect it just needs to some heat to break loctite on the bolt.



Went for a nice long loop through Hampton/Chaplin/Canterbury/Pachaug as a road test.

With drive-bys of a Jeep Invasion in Plainfield, and stopping at Betsy's Stand on Ekonk hill for tomatoes.

I was shocked how many Jeeps were at the show! I just had my schmegy clothes on, maybe next year I'll go.

Was gorgeous perfect Jeep top open weather.







Hmmmm...the old part of Bailey Pond Road is being logged. I did poke in to the logging deck hoping maybe I could finally go down to the old bridge, but they had put brush across the old road :(



Ok, up on all fours. Tomorrow need to:
-- Check the sway bar bolts;
-- Check that the sway bar hasn't touched...I bet that Jeep Invasion had a flex apparatus too which would've been perfect to check it while someone watched to make sure they cleared the body mount :/
-- Grab one of the nuts so I can buy some spares to take with me;
-- Put on the conical washers to protect skid plate bolts;
-- Warm the engine and check coolant reservoir when warm (forgot to do that when I got back from the road test);

When I got to Ekonk, you could see clouds moving in. Was not expecting that -- it had been a nice sunny day. I made it home just as it started to drizzle and got the windows up on the Fusion and had just enough time to sweep the garage floor before pulling in the Jeep.