Reply to "Installing Brake Kit"

Last night by midnight, the veryfast italain was ready for a road test to see how the brakes worked. The front 15x7 front tightened down on the new calipers. The 15x8 in back cleared fine, they were removed in the rear again and locktighted. Same in front. On and off they go, everything getting fitted, adjusted and squirted with the red stuff. Some effort, by MMM, were got stuck and halted when all the grinding wheels wore down taking of 1/16" from the top of the calipers, to spin freely, and clear properly. This stuff is close tolerances and the brake pads extend perfectly to the perimeter of the rotor. Freight Harbor has these grinding wheels of carbon steel for $4 for 4 miniature oil well bits. 2 of those, 2 clear safety classes, one for MMM to look cool at work, they look like some spoty shades for mountain biking. Encourage my buddy to wear them at work and avoid eye injury, I hope.

Tonight, the parking brakes were installed and adjusted, just right. It took several on off sequences to shim up the parking brakes just right, and the machinist got my bracket reworked exactly right, and ready this morning. The old slave cyulinder is the new parking brake. The hydrulic fluid is drained out and a new bolt plugs the hole where the line brake used to be attached.

Lots of people have helped and come through for me, and I want to thank them. Rachel, you are getting flowers tomorrow, Thursday, 4/14/05. Thank you for weighing in on my behalf today. Thank you for taking care of business. Thank you to all who have been continually helping keep my cat in good health.

Still on jack stands, it got a new clutch hose installed tonight too. The oil plug is going to be pulled and drained overnight, since it is cold oil. When the dude dumped last year's oil yesterday, he told me the oil still had at least a thousand miles left on it, so some old oil shall remain in this time, a little, and that project cheacked off the list. Oil changes, engine and ZF, done in the next 24 hours. Same for the air cleaner K&N element. Haven't done that before, so I'll have to figure it out without looking at the instructions, of course. Lots of things done, lots of things left to do.

Not having been driven in 6 months, I noticed a new whisping sound coming from the right side, front engine compartment. MMM diagnosed it as possibly a leaking header pipe, but it gets quieter with rpm's increasing. He said it's probably that one of the hydraulic push rods lost it's fluid and needs to pump up. 20/40 is heavy oil and needs about 20 or 30 minutes to flow into the push rod. If that doesn't clear up that noise, we'll be installing whatever needs to get replaced to get it right. Little by little, closer to better performance and reliablility. That's the idea. It'll be done, and I'll know a lot about this car, and have a lot of confidence in it, except for rain.....