Filed under: Unimportant
It all started yesterday, the day before Father’s Day. I thought I’d make a quick trip to the dump with our trash and recyclables. It’s not really a dump. It’s a rural waste transfer station. We call it “the dump” for convenience. I usually go on Sundays, but this Sunday was Father’s day, and who wants to go to the dump on Father’s Day? Well, not me.
Anyway, I tossed the two smelly bags of garbage and the bags of bottles and cans into the back of the dually, put the paper recycling into the cab (so it won’t blow away) and started out of the driveway. Before I even got five feet I realized I had no brakes! Damn! A quick look under the truck revealed a suspicious fluid on the driveway. Yep, it smelled just like brake fluid. Poking my head underneath I saw a large area of the underside of the bed, the muffler and some other areas covered with brake fluid. I thought, “there must be a brake fluid leak.” I soon saw that the brake line leading to the rear wheels was leaking and would have to be replace before any trip to the dump (to say nothing of the planned trip to New York at the end of the week) would happen. Getting the Prius out of the garage so I could work on the truck was the easy part. You see, not only is the truck a very tight fit though the garage doors but the trailer was blocking the way. Using the skills I’ve developed over the years piloting boats (which also have no brakes) I manoeuvered the truck using forward and reverse so that I could hitch up the trailer and move it. That done, again using only forward and reverse gears I got the back end of the truck into the garage and out of the sun. Now, for those who don’t live in Florida, I must explain that it may only be 95 degrees out but if it’s sunny, the sun will fry the skin right off you. You gotta have shade.
Removing the brake line is a simple matter of two flare nuts and two bolts holding on some clips that keep the brake line from bouncing around. OK, not too back except one of the flare nuts is between the gas tank and the truck frame. Gotta drop the gas tank. OK, that’s just two more bolts, but it’s almost full of gas. Thirty gallons weighs what, around two hundred pounds. Hmm. After some pondering… it’s always the pondering that takes the most time (but yields the most results) I realized that rather than “drop the tank” I should raise the truck, leaving the tank behind. Soon I had the gas tank resting on the spare tire and some scrap lumber and the two bolts holding to the truck removed. Did I mention that they were rather rusted and required a fair amount of working back and forth with generous applications of penetrating oil? Well, they did, but eventually they succumbed. My plan was a success. Raising the back of the truck with my floor jack succeeded in creating sufficient room to get at the flare nut. Remember the flare nut? Oh, you didn’t know about removing the tires on that side plus the spare tire which hangs underneath so that I could sit under the truck to work. Yes, I had a jack stand as well as the jack supporting the truck. Although I had never used them I was very glad to have bought a set of flare-nut wrenches some time back as they were just what I needed to remove the nuts and the busted brake line. Having achieved that milestone, I called it a day, planning to finish the job in the cool of the next morning.
The next morning was Father’s Day! What joy to look forward to another few hours (at least) crawling under an old truck and having rusty bits and dirt fall into my beard every time I so much as made a loud noise. But first I had to get a replacement brake line. The closest auto parts store is about 25 miles from us and they didn’t have a replacement. The third store I tried had a straight 40″ piece with which I would have to make a functional replacement for the very crooked 36″ original. I purchased the best tubing bender they had. Finally at home I ate a quick late lunch, donned my battle dress, and started bending tubing. This was actually the most satisfying part of the job as I slowly worked the once-straight and boring 1/4″ steel tube into the zigzag brake line required. My spacial geometry skills were taxed at times, but by making each bend a little at a time I was able to recover from my errors and soon (in the big picture) had a brake line that fit.
Now all that was left was to put the gas tank back, bleed the brakes, put the tires on and clean up. Oh, I probably should have bought some brake fluid. Fortunately I already had some, and also have nifty brake bleeder vacuum pump gadget that sucks the old fluid and air out of the line at the wheel. Sort of. It worked pretty much as designed and after a few helpful presses on the brake pedal by my shop assistant (aka Corinne) I had the brakes bled.
I finally got to go to the dump. Remember the dump?
