[8v,tech,horror] Brake Adventures! (long)

[Oliver Seiler <oseiler@acm.org>]

Hi all -- thanks for the responses on installing braided steel brake
lines...

So let me tell you what's happened so far...

Yesterday I started in on changing the front rotors and pads. The first
side I tackled, the driver's side, went very smoothly. The passenger side,
however, has a bit of a glitch; the mounting screw for the rotor was
rusted in solid. And the screwdriver hole was almost stripped (apparently
a previous owner had tried taking it off and failed). Liquid Wrench didn't
help, so I ended up drill it out. Things got really annoying when I tried
getting the remaining part of the screw out of the hub; tried using a
screw extractor and ended up having the end of it snap off inside the hole
I had drilled. At that point I gave up on it and decided to put it all
back together and have the rotor just held on with the wheel lug bolts...

On to tonight, when I wanted to tackle getting the new brake hoses on and
the old fluid replaced.

Again, I started on the front driver's side wheel. And again it went
pretty smoothly, and I got the new brake hose on just fine. Then on to the
passenger side front wheel. Well, I ended up rounding the brake line
connector (it looks like it was already a bit rounded; previous owner
perhaps) and it seems stuck solid. Very mad at this point...

After fuming about this for awhile, I decided to move on to the back. I
didn't really spend a lot of time trying; I couldn't figure out how I was
going to loosen the brake line connector that leads off to the rear drum.
It's really well hidden and I couldn't get two wrenches on to loosen the
nut.

Then I started bleeding the system. I had also decided to reinstall the
original front brake hose, since I didn't want to have one side be the old
line and one be the new steel hose; I should have probably changed it back
before beginning the bleeding process, but instead decided to do it when I
got to it -- very messy error.

Anyway, I'm using the Motive pressure bleeder, and the rear brakes went
very smoothly. Then I got to the front passenger side caliper. I tried
loosening the bleeder valve but it was very stuck, and I didn't want to
risk rounding it off. I ended up using a ratchet with and 8mm socket on
it, and that loosened it nicely. However, instead of coming out of the
bleeder valve properly, the fluid started coming up around the base, where
the valve screws in. It seems the valve is very rusted. I ended up just
bleeding it like this, though it was a bit messy...

So then I go to the front driver side, and reinstall the old brake line.
Of course, since I'm in the middle of bleeding, I end up draining out the
reservoir filled with new fluid (Super Blue!). Damn -- well, it's my first
time doing this... Anyway, I get the old hose back on, and, using the
ratchet and socket again, try to loosen the bleeder valve. Instead of
loosening up, the whole top of the valve breaks off, right down to where
it threads in. So now the car is pretty much undriveable until I get a
replacement bleeder valve (assuming I can extract the remains of the
bleeder valve that is stuck in the caliper).

Question: what would you all suggest doing about the rounded off brake
line connector? Is it possible to cut the metal brake line at the
connector and somehow install a new connector? Otherwise then only way I
could imagine fixing this is to get a whole replacement brake line, pull
out the old one from the master cylinder, and put in the new one,
installing the new brake hose at the same time.

Damn I hate working on a car with a poor maintenance history...

Thanks,
Oliver

Oliver Seiler -- Software Developer, Pivotal Software, http://www.pivotal.com
            Scirocco MkII Diary - http://osroc.weblogs.com


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