Midas Has Lost Their Touch

Today's post is all about a weekend spent doing brakes on K'Lack, and me left wondering if they needed to be touched at all. To my fellow Oregonians, if you have not received your November ballot yet, it ought to be arriving very soon. To everyone/anyone living in a representative democracy, I hope you exercise the right from which all other rights spring: your right to vote.

 

K'Lack Background

oh, the irony

In my last post, I said that I was waiting for parts to arrive for me to to K'Lack's brakes. For some brief backstory on K'Lack, it is a 2004 VW Jetta TDI Wagon (BEW engine) previously owned by our son Kai. He drove it for years, put a lot of miles on it and when the transmission started acting funny (the auto is notoriously bad) he wanted to unload it. Well, no car lot would give him more than a few hundred dollars for it because the transmission was going bad. So, me and Ang stepped in, bought it for Kelly BlueBook value and sent it into a transmission shop. They spent 3 months rebuilding it (got the wrong kit the 1st time) and we had it back for a couple of weeks before Krista needed a replacement car. At the time, we had a couple of extra cars, but they were all manual transmissions (she can't drive stick). So, we wold her K'Lack for what we paid Kai plus I think about half the cost of the transmission rebuild. That was before CoViD, so K'Lack has really served her well.

 

Oh, we named it "K'Lack" because it has that annoying issue in the turn stalk where it makes a nearly constant "clack-clack-clack" noise. Eventually , it gets to where you don't notice it anymore, but that's where the name came from.

 

K'Lack Brakes

I did the brakes on K'Lack not too long ago. I looked back into the blog history, but I can't find a reference to it other than saying I was going to do it in April (See Building a Shop - Doors). Regardless, at the time, the brakes were making noise. I determined at the time that the right-side rear caliper was leaking. So, I replaced it, but did the pads and rotors. I believe that at the time I also replaced the front pads, but I didn't document it anywhere so maybe I didn't. Well, a summer later, when it spent at least a month sitting under a tree waiting for it to get fixed and through smog testing, Krista grew concerned about the brakes making noise. I suggested that she take it to Midas and get a professional opinion, but recognize they are all liars and thieves, so anything they say we'll take with a grain of salt. Or a 5 pound bag of it.

 

Midas

So, Krista took K'Lack to Midas and told them the brakes were making a funny squeal/squeak noise. They gave her a listing of things that needed to be done, including replacing the rear left caliper (said it was sticking) and replacing all pads and rotors. Their price? $1200US. They also said a bunch of other stuff needed replacing that was not showing any reason for concern. New steering pump $1700US. I stopped reading then, but it was a laundry list that totaled over $5kUS. I don't know if they had her pegged as a mark or what. I told her that we would ignore everything except the part that she went there to talk to them about.

 

K'Lack Rear Left Brake 

there be meat on that inner pad

I knew that I had done the rear rotors and pads a few months back. So, when Midas said all of them needed to replaced, I wanted to see what they saw, so I took the right rear tire off and sure enough the pads have almost all of their meat still on them. Then, I shifted over to the left rear. Those pads and the rotor were so new-ish that the part number printed on the top of the pads was still visible. The brakes had not been used enough to produce enough dust to cover / fill in the part numbers. Still, I had the replacement caliper, so I separated the caliper from the bracket (13mm socket, IIRC) and looked at the caliper. The seal around piston did look mis-shaped Perhaps I was too aggressive when I set the piston back into the caliper when I did the brakes in April and messed it up.

  

Regardless, I got after replacing the caliper. I started by pouring some brake fluid into the fluid-line hole in the new caliper. While this doesn't eliminate all of the air, it does eliminate a lot of it, making the bleed a little bit faster. Then, I removed the emergency/parking brake cable with a slotted screwdriver and then the brake line with a 14mm spanner from the old caliper. Fluid immediately started leaking out of the line, so I quickly set the old caliper down and threaded the line into the new one. I put the emergency brake cable on, and then set the caliper on top of the still-in-place pads. After sending the slides back on, I tested the brake pedal, noticed a small leak at the hose-caliper junction and tightened it. The next test of the brake pedal cause the brake line to rupture, shooting brake fluid straight up right next to the top slide. Great, hose failed.

 

The rear brake lines, at least on this make/model/year are a combination hard line rubber line where they are fused together. So, when the rubber part fails, you need to replace the whole line. Neat. We got very lucky in that a friendly local auto parts store (FLAPS) had one in stock on a Saturday. The hardline joins another rubber line on top of the rear axle and can be loosened with a flare wrench. Then, the line can be popped free from the 3 plastic holders. I held the replacement next to the original, and the bends were in exactly the right spots. You would think that's not newsworthy, but nowadays it is.

 

The other end of the new brake line is the same banjo fitting as the old one had, but there was one major difference: the through-bolt was held captive in the fitting. The old brake line ended with a hole through which a separate banjo bolt would pass. To me, this creates greater flexibility during install and allows you to replace the bolt (usually a wear-part) independently. Enter another banjo-bolt nightmare that was not nearly as awful as the banjo bolt in the steering in Flash. I can't believe I didn't blog on that. I spent literally 2 days of a Christmas break trying to get a banjo bolt to align. Anyway, this was more like 15 minutes, but 15 minutes can feel really long. I believe the captured bolt makes this 100 times harder.

 

With the brake line attached, I re-tested the brakes and there were no leaks. I realized that lots of fluid made it onto the shop floor so I went to engine bay to add brake fluid... and... discovered that Midas had barely set the brake fluid reservoir cap on. It was not secured at all; it was just sitting on top of the reservoir. What a bunch of hacks!

 

K'Lack Front Brakes

front meat too

After seeing the state of the brake reservoir, I had to take a break.I returned a few hours later to look at the front brakes. These also looked barely used. I replaced the pads and rotors anyway. Why? I could not remember if I had done them last Spring, and while Midas is a den of liars and thieves, maybe they saw something I didn't. At least that was how I felt on Saturday. Today, maybe not so much. Regardless, I saved the old rotors and pads in case this set gives up at a time when Krista doesnt have money for new ones. Looking at them in the image on the right, they do not appear to be wearing evenly. That may be a case of the slides not greased sufficiently which I will take to heart on my next brake job.

 

The pads on the front right wheel had what looked like a small chip chunked out of them. Like what would have happened had a rock gotten in there, which is what I concluded happened, and was the source of the noise: a rock got in there, screamed a bunch and then shook loose, but not before Krista got worried about it. 

 

Replacing the front brakes was relatively uneventful. One wheel and rotor did not want to come off, so I needed to use a sledge-hammer blunted with a wooden 2x4. This looks much worse than it really is. Sometimes, a wheel will surface-rust to the rotor. That's totally normal. I set a 2x4 against the wheel where the rubber tire meets the alloy rim and then swing the long-handled sledge from about a meter away straight into that piece of lumber. The wheel usually pops off after a smack or 2. To reduce the recurrence, I will usually put some anti-seize on the backside of the rim before I put it back on. Since I had to get physical with the rim, clearly Midas did not remove it for their "inspection".

 

Once the rim is off, remove the T-45 slides. Yes, the fronts use one kind of fastener-type for the slide and rears use something completely different. VW engineers are a sadistic bunch. With the slides removed, the caliper comes right off. I set it up above the wheel so no tension is placed on the rubber brake hose. 

 

Next, I remove the old pads, and clean the caliper with brake cleaner. Next, with the correct brake tool, send the piston back into the caliper. Take care not to force anything. Before I put in the new pads, I give them a slight scuff with a flat file and then shoot them with brake cleaner. The slight scuff is something I picked up from an old car guy who said the pads break-in much faster when you do that. With the pads in, I set the loaded caliper back up out the way.

 

Then, I remove the rotor, which is held in place with a small Phillips bolt. For install, I first shoot both sides of the rotor with brake cleaner to get the shipping coating off. I then hang the rotor with a couple of the rim bolts so it is aligned and then send the Phillips bolt in. When the rotor is on, I grab the caliper from above and fit it into place. It is important to put a little bit of brake grease on the slides to they do not hang up in anyway. Then, set them in place with the T-45.

 

Bleeding Brakes By Yourself

I have tried and failed to effectively bleed brakes by myself... until this time. I am not really sure what I did wrong in the past, but I'll detail what I did this time. To do this by yourself, you need a MityVac or similar hand-held vacuum pump with a brake-bleeder attachment kit. I assembled and confirmed solid vacuum from pump to canister to fitting. Next, I set the flare wrench onto the bleeder first and in the right position to have full range of travel for loosen/tighten. Then, I set the end of the vacuum contraption onto the bleeder and applied 10 to 15 Hg of vacuum. With the vacuum holding, I loosened the valve just enough for some fluid to pass, and watched the vacuum dial. As it got below 5Hg, I closed the bleeder, applied more vacuum (up to 10-15Hg) and repeated. On the right rear, it did not take long to get steady fluid with very few bubbles. The left rear, because of the replaced hard line, took considerably longer. Still, once I was finished, the brakes felt much more firm than they were before I bled. Now that I have had success once, I will try again with Oliver's brakes. Hit spongey brakes have been the reason we have not driven him for literally years.

 

Wrap Up

I test drove K'Lack up and down the lane-way to confirm they were decent. Then, I ran the car back over to Krista, collecting Frankie (2009 Saturn/Vauxhall Astra). K'Lack ran great, stopped very well and for the first time that I can remember, it didn't "clack-clack-clack" once the whole drive. Color my stunned.

 

Well, that's it for today. Thanks, as always, for following along. I'll update on the farmhouse progress next time. It's been busy around here.