Jane,
My son came home in his Firebird Sunday and informed me:
My brakes are grinding.
My first thought was, oh my goodness, he has ignored the indicators and has destroyed the rotors.
I relayed my fears and he corrected me, "Dad, I am not an idiot, I let you know as soon as I heard it grinding".
At this point I need to tell you that my wife let the brakes grind on a previous Jeep Cherokee until the rotors were destroyed.
Anyway,
Today one of his classes was cancelled, so when I got home from work, he was ready to work on his Firebird. I really didn't feel like messing with it after a full day at work, but he insisted.
I told him: "No one taught me how to work on cars, I taught
myself".
He reminded me of a recent statement I made: "I have a lot of mechanical knowledge that could be passed onto my kids but none of you seem to want to learn".
He told me: "Now is the time for me to learn. I need to drive my car to work tonight".
We worked together by artificial light to R&R the front and rear brake pads on his car. It took about three hours because I let him do most of the work.
During the process, we used a couple of thousand dollars worth of equipment. (Ingersald Rand T-30 Air Compressor, 1/2 inch drive air wrench, two hydraulic floor jacks, jack stands, S-K socket sets, etc,.
I told my son:
Very few backyard mechanics have access to the equipment you have access to.
He said:
Dad, you are not the average backyard mechanic.
That is definately a true statement, I am just glad he understands it.
Now for the clincher.
He took the car for a test drive, came back and said,
"It's doing great, THANKS DAD".
Made it all worthwhile, for sure.
Have fun,
Because you can.
Terrorists beware,
Because you must.
Phil |
