So yeah, I never did get around to doing the brakes in the wife's ride until it was too late. THe car was known to have bad rusty backing plates, so I was waiting for my week off to pull all 4 off my parts car, and then do the whole job at once.

The car made it to 2 days before my week off, and the left rear went metal-to-metal.... ok, ok, I'll do 'em. How hard can it be to stuff the calipers and stick a rotor on it. Oh, look, here's a NEW rotor in a box, left over from someone else's emergency job! Well, at least I won't need to make another trip to FCP.

While I'm at it, it's time to pull the snow tires and put on the Virgos. Got some 205/65-15 Gislaved Speed 506's, not a bad choice for a wagon. Got started about 11 o clock after a nice Tex-Mex breakfast...

So the left rear caliper is real real rusty. Original? Most likely, car has 215 or so on it. Hey, it moves. Both pistons even! The pins, pads and clips look like crap. The end of the pin peens over when I try to drive it out. Ok, get a punch. One bends a bit more. The second one... starts to move and then the TOP OF THE CALIPER BREAKS OFF. About an inch of thin casting above the pin. WTF? Fine, I'll change it. Got the 89 parts car over there, not even rusty.

The brake line is stiff on the wagon. Real stiff. Seems like it turned finally... nope, the brass rounded off in my flare wrench. WTF? Fine, I'll take the line off the parts car too. At least both came apart fine at the top of the axle.

Pull the caliper, pull the rotor. DOH. The entire parking brake on the 88 is sitting in the bottom of the drum in pieces. Nothing but crusty metal shoes left. FINE, I'll pull those off too. One shoe loses it's lining on the 89. Of course. The hardware all looks good at least. Anyway, pull the parking brakes, the axle bolts, pull the axle, pull the parking cable guide and that silly bumper thing off, and get the backing plates off. The 89 rotor looks real good, think I'll save the new one.

Make a run to FCP, for a set of parking brake shoes and some pads and hardware (OE Volvo). At least if I gotta do everything, I'm gonna do all new stuff. Had to take the 70 VW Bus, because wife went to work in my car. Our 2 new ones aren't here yet (supposed to be getting an 88 244 and a 90 745- this weekend!).

OK, now it's raining. Tools are all outside. Clean up what needs to be but still leave out enough to work. The otherwise good rotor off the 89 parts car got all rusty in the rain. No big deal I know but I did spend some time cleaning it up once already.

Swap the backing plate. MAnaged to lean against the axle while it's out so now I smell like gear oil. Got the parking brake on with new shoes without much trouble. Rotor WILL NOT go on. Hmm, ok, back off the parking brake adjuster, a LOT. Still not enough. What now? Took it all apart (Anyone got tips on doing this without removing fingers?) again, checked that the lever was free, and found that the cable doesn't want to retract. Great. Pulled it out manually, got it about closed. Rotor still won't go on. Lined up pieces from the otehr brake with the new shoes, and found that the old rotor is just rusty enough that they aren't gonna slide on there. FINE. Use the new rotor, still won't go. After much more fiddling with the cable, and a lot of serious pushing, the new rotor went over the new shoes. Harder than it should have been. Weird thing is the cable seems to work, just won't retract that last little bit. By now I'm completely soaked. Tools are starting to rust.

Decided that the old pads in the used caliper are good enough for now. Decided to wait on bleeding brakes till it's not raining. I'll use the power bleeder, and do it right, just not right now. Changed the last tire and then came in to clean up and dry off. Oh, and the GFCI tripped from running my electric impact wrench in the rain. Yeah, I know, better than zappin me. What a fun day!
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Rob Bareiss, New London CT ::: 87 244DL- 249K, B230F/M47, Turbo sways, Bilsteins, GT braces, Virgos, Turbo exhaust, Gislaveds for winter!