My first encounter with Josie's Accent involved a van-camping trip to Portland, Oregon to get at it. Her front brakes needed doing and Chris and I needed a road trip through Wyoming, Montana, the Bitterroot Mountains of Idaho, and the Columbia River Gorge. We really lived it up on the way there. Drove in to Portland, took her car and drove it to a parking lot below a service station where they said we could work on it for the day. Started on the front passenger side and got into a nightmare right away. I removed one bolt from the caliper but could not get the other to turn, even with vice grips and a universal nut removing tool. After an hour, I discovered that the caliper simply swung up on a pin. What I was trying to remove was just a bump in the casting to accommodate the pin on the other side.
It turned out that the brakes were very, very friendly if you simply knew the set-up! We drove to a parts store with the van and picked up the pads; and the driver side went in about ten minutes. Anyway, we ended up doing a crack job, new pads, WD-40 squirted around the piston boots, and caliper crease where applicable.
Put the car back at Josie's and continued on our adventure, taking some waterfall hikes with her the next morning before starting home. It turned out to be a very fine trip.
Wouldn't you know, not long after returning home, Josie thought she heard noise in the rear brakes, which are drum and shoe type. I advised her that the rear brakes do very little of the braking and generally don't wear out for a very long time. When she got back to Wisconsin, she had a mechanic look at them and they were either sufficient, or new shoes were put in.
ReplyDeleteLast day of May, 2015, I worked on it again. Josie had had the fuel line replaced at Severson's and smelled gas. The boot around her shifter is all dislocated, but there shouldn't be any gas smell. That's never acceptable. Her other problem was the brakes suddenly going totally soft.
ReplyDeleteI jacked it up and quickly found a perforated brake line, sawed it through and put in a 3/16" compression coupling, and some zip-ties to hold it to the other lines on either side of the fitting. Now we had to bleed the brakes, so I opened the caliper on the driver's side while I had the wheel off. Over half the pad still there and no unusual wear. Opened the bleed valve and fluid started dripping out from gravity. Jacked up the rear and pulled off the drum. Over half the shoe still there and no unusual wear. Blew the dust all out, cleaned everything, lubed it and bled out the line. Checked the rear on the passenger side, which is where the noise is from. Same situation there, nothing wrong. Cleaned, bled and shut her up. The shoe makes a slight rub against the drum while the wheel is spinning. Told her to ignore that. Didn't bother to check the front right. Put everything back together and we took it to Severson's the next day for them to check the gas smell, since they had done the work.
Unfortunately a girl either ran a stop sign or failed to yield and smashed this car up. I think it was totaled. At any rate Josie has purchased a Hyundai Santa Fe to take its place.
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