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I'm way out of my depth here. I don't do brakes. This has always been my approach. I figure if I screw up anything on the engine, the worst that can happen is it won't go. If I make a mistake with the brakes, then it doesn't stop, and that's a whole different kettle of fish. I drive a lot of mountain road and the thought of driving off the side of Moonbi hill doesn't appeal to me.
Three days ago I was at a friend place near the University fixing my exhaust (exhaust flange gave way altogether and left the head pipe hanging, very noisy trip) and while I had the car up on stands, I checked the front wheels. Both bearings seemed ok, but there was a bit of drag in the left front wheel. I wasn't in a position to fixing brakes that afternoon, so I drove home 500 kms or so, making a mental note to get it up on stands again and fix the problem as soon as I got home. (how many times do I get burned letting something go one day too long)
Skip ahead to what it was doing 24 hours later. I was going to check it out the following day, back in Sydney, but I gave a friend a lift home from work first and dropped him in the city. I started getting some odd noises from the left front wheel, I dropped Nick off and headed home.
Nothing I have ever experienced on the road prepared me for the sensation of locking a front wheel on the freeway, good thing I was in the outside lane or I could have been off the bridge and into the harbour, my car just switched lanes without warning, I kept it on the road and pulled off into Lilyfield alongside the railway line, the wheel rim was too hot to touch and the brake pedal was really soft.
I got it home, very gently, I probably should have used my NRMA membership to have it towed but I didn't want to be sitting around waiting for a flatbed. By the time I got to my house I was trying to manuevre into a parking space with a front wheel barely moving, and no pressure at all to the other three wheels. I could only stop using the handbrake.
I went to inspect the damage this morning. The bearing is very loose and clunky, not even drivable really, a friend thinks the bearing went because I overheated the wheel dragging the brake. After burning my fingers on the bearing cap last night I can believe it.
I'm very poor right now, like can I borrow $50 till payday poor. Is this just a bad caliper, and can I just grab a good donor caliper and put it on? Is this most likely to be the problem or should I be looking elsewhere in the system?
Also, is this going to have wreaked the front rotor? It looks pretty scored, but it was like that before if memory serves, it's undersize for machining so I can't put a new surface on it, it's replace or live with it.
And then there's the bearing. How much of the bearing assembly is going to need to replacing after cooking the bearing (I'm getting metal shards coming out the hole, it looks pretty stuffed in there, the cap is gone completely)
I don't normally touch brakes, any advice this one? I've never even changed a pad myself, I removed a rotor once to replace some studs, that's about it.
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Drive it like you hate it
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