Ok, I’ve totally lost count on what week it is. I want to say 14? And how should I count it? Is it how many weeks we’ve had the car? Or maybe just how many weeks we’ve worked on it? If it’s based on weeks of work, we’re really at closer to week 9…doesn’t matter. This Saturday was rather productive and now we’re this close (making a small pinchy-pinchy motion with my fingers) to getting it driving around the neighborhood.
Wheel Studs
This week was all about brakes and wheel studs, so the first parts we needed to replace were the wheel studs, as it’d be stupid to put new brake hardware on then have to take it right back off again to get to the studs. How hard can it be to knock out the old studs, then pull the new ones on with a lug nut? Oh boy, let me tell you.
Theoretically, it’s not that hard at all. You should be able to simply smack the old studs out of the hub with a hammer, put the new ones in place, then thread a lug nut on there to pull it through. That is unless you don’t put a nut between the hub and the lug nut, then use your very torque-y impact gun to accidentally seize the nut and stud together because you got them so hot. Then have to go buy a metal blade for your sawzall and hack them apart. Not that any part of that scenario happened to us.
That was totally my fault. I got into a rush and wanted to get this car on the road, so I completely seized the lug nut to the wheel stud. After we got it cut off, which went way quicker than I thought it would, we got some larger nuts and washers to ensure the stud went in straight and maybe wouldn’t spin so much in the back. Alas, it was not to be. The washers ended up being useless and the nut was made of a very soft metal, which the lug nut ate into and cause the wheel stud to go in crooked.
Que another trip to the store after my lovely, lovely wife found a tool that promised to solve all of our problems. It consists of a tapered hole for the lug nut, which ensures it stays centered, and rides on bearings so the “top” spins with the lug nut and the “bottom” stays with the hub. It was $36, but if it works like it should that’s a bargain.
This tool is the best $36 we can remember spending in a long, long time. Instead of taking something like 10 minutes per stud doing it with a breaker bar with the first nut and washer method, an impact gun and that tool let us do the whole car in about 15 minutes!
Brakes for Days
Next up, brakes. Since we didn’t know the condition of the brakes themselves we made an educated guess and assumed they were toast. I feel like we used pretty solid reasoning, as this car had sat outside for the last 6 years and normal brakes start rusting as soon as rain even looks at the car. Everything came apart pretty easily, with the only slowdown being caused by the rear brake calipers and manual retraction of the piston. Once I got the calipers off I realized why there had been so much resistance to me sliding them free…
Holy corrosion, Batman! Lucky for us, these weren’t quite as bad as they seemed at first and cleaned up really well. Ok, maybe “really well” is a bit of an exaggeration, but they’re way better than they were and I applied a liberal amount of Permatex brake lube to hopefully get them moving smoothly again. If we have problems with our rear brakes sticking in the future, this is one of the first places we’ll look (after making sure I adjusted them right).
I know I didn’t take any pictures of the old brakes on the car, but we were so ready to get this done we kinda just ripped everything off. Regardless, possibly the best part of working on the brakes was knowing that we ordered these parts months ago and they’ve just been waiting for us to get to them. So that means they’re basically free, right?
Road Test?
It’s so close, I can taste it. And it tastes like fear, joy, and tetanus. However, before we get it rolling under its own power we still need to fill the transmission with oil, air up the tires, fix the slow coolant leaks, and burn effigies of the Miata god for good luck. Which begs the question, is the Mazda Miata god Ahura Mazda?
One of these things is not a hard requirement, but it’s not the one you think.
Out of My Element 