Some men fish on the weekends while others play golf. Other bowl or play cards, hit the slots, the track etc. My weekend "indulgence" is attempting to keep my fleet of ancient automobiles running without it costing me an arm and a leg.
My fishing trip this weekend was to replace the front rotors and pads on the 1996 Chevrolet Camaro my wife and I bought a couple of years ago for our teenage sons to use. We love the little car but there are significant trade offs using a now twenty year old car as a daily driver. Those tradeoffs being constant problems and replacing wear out items, like the brakes, that should have been replaced thousands of miles ago.
Replacing the front brakes on a 1993 vintage, Generation III Camaro is straight forward. Remove the two, 3/8 inch hex bolts from the calipers, pull the caliper off the rotor and replace the pads inside the caliper - oddly there is no caliper bracket on these cars - pull off and replace the rotor. Easy. Well, on the right side it was easy. The left side was one of the most challenging things I've done. The culprit, rust. Lots of rust.
After two hours of pounding on both sides of the rotor with my five pound sledge hammer and breaking a large, steering wheel puller type device I rented from Autozone in the process, I decided to throw in the towel and pull the wheel hub that holds the rotor onto the car. My thought was that I'd replace the hub along with the rotor. While the hub, which also holds the ABS assembly, would run me another $90 or so, I'd still be way ahead of what a shop would charge me.
Before I bought the hub, though, I thought it best to drench the inside of the rusty hub and rotor and let it sit over night on my workbench. Sure enough, it all came apart with additional love taps from my five pounder the next morning.
Onto the next fishing trip.
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