Hello to both of my regular readers! It's been seven months since I last wrote anything here so it's about time for another post.
The main reason for no new news is mostly that I haven't been doing anything newsworthy. I've spent a significant proportion of the last few months slowly reorganising my workshop. My working space has traditionally been focused on car work but I'm trying to turn it into a more general "making things" kind of a space. More news on that eventually.
This weekend though I thought I'd ease myself back into some car stuff with a few easy servicing jobs on the Smart Roadster. New brake pads and shoes, a new air filter and an oil and filter change. If that all went well and I was feeling enthusiastic then I have new control arms waiting to be fitted in the rear suspension as the bushings in the old ones are worn out.
The old brake pads were exhausted, I already knew this so I started there. I'd bought some genuine Smart branded parts last week so old ones out, new ones in. That was easy. I still don't know why Smart provide two new caliper slide bolts in the pad kit though. There are two bolts each side, four in total so providing two new ones is pretty useless. The old ones were fine though and refitted with some threadlock.
Having got the front end back on the ground and the back end on stands I pulled off the nearside drum and confirmed that the rear shoes were looking well worn too. I'd bought a kit for this as well so was hoping for another simple job.
The new OEM kit comes with the shoes, springs and adjuster all preassembled in the box. That implies it ought to be possible to remove the old set, clean things up and fit the new ones in one piece. In practice I can't see any way to remove the old shoes complete with all their ancillaries in one go. Perhaps removing the hub would help but it seems silly to add extra effort there just to save it on the brake fitting. In the end I removed the old shoes and fittings the old fashioned way by unclipping the springs and taking it apart piece by piece.
With all that out of the way there was a depressing dribble of rusty liquid from both ends of the brake cylinder. I don't know whether I disturbed something whilst removing the shoes as there doesn't appear to be any evidence of it leaking previously. Removing the outer seals showed a significant amount of rust and fluid collected behind them.
Whilst cleaning that I managed to accidentally pop out one of the pistons, along with yet more brown soup. The good news is that the inside of the cylinder doesn't look bad and the inner seals, visibly at least, are OK. I'm wondering if the rust is the result of condensation gathering behind the outer seals whilst the car has been stood for the last five months or so. I've temporarily refitted the pistons without their outer seals whilst I work out what I want to do.
I really don't want to get involved in a full brake overhaul at this stage. All the unions and fittings are rusty as and the chances of getting any of the four bleed nipples out without ruining something looks to be pretty minimal. Having said that, now that rear cylinder has come apart it'll need bleeding anyway one way or the other.
For now I've taken the obvious route, closed the door and quietly walked away.
The main reason for no new news is mostly that I haven't been doing anything newsworthy. I've spent a significant proportion of the last few months slowly reorganising my workshop. My working space has traditionally been focused on car work but I'm trying to turn it into a more general "making things" kind of a space. More news on that eventually.
This weekend though I thought I'd ease myself back into some car stuff with a few easy servicing jobs on the Smart Roadster. New brake pads and shoes, a new air filter and an oil and filter change. If that all went well and I was feeling enthusiastic then I have new control arms waiting to be fitted in the rear suspension as the bushings in the old ones are worn out.
The old brake pads were exhausted, I already knew this so I started there. I'd bought some genuine Smart branded parts last week so old ones out, new ones in. That was easy. I still don't know why Smart provide two new caliper slide bolts in the pad kit though. There are two bolts each side, four in total so providing two new ones is pretty useless. The old ones were fine though and refitted with some threadlock.
Having got the front end back on the ground and the back end on stands I pulled off the nearside drum and confirmed that the rear shoes were looking well worn too. I'd bought a kit for this as well so was hoping for another simple job.
The new OEM kit comes with the shoes, springs and adjuster all preassembled in the box. That implies it ought to be possible to remove the old set, clean things up and fit the new ones in one piece. In practice I can't see any way to remove the old shoes complete with all their ancillaries in one go. Perhaps removing the hub would help but it seems silly to add extra effort there just to save it on the brake fitting. In the end I removed the old shoes and fittings the old fashioned way by unclipping the springs and taking it apart piece by piece.
With all that out of the way there was a depressing dribble of rusty liquid from both ends of the brake cylinder. I don't know whether I disturbed something whilst removing the shoes as there doesn't appear to be any evidence of it leaking previously. Removing the outer seals showed a significant amount of rust and fluid collected behind them.
Whilst cleaning that I managed to accidentally pop out one of the pistons, along with yet more brown soup. The good news is that the inside of the cylinder doesn't look bad and the inner seals, visibly at least, are OK. I'm wondering if the rust is the result of condensation gathering behind the outer seals whilst the car has been stood for the last five months or so. I've temporarily refitted the pistons without their outer seals whilst I work out what I want to do.
I really don't want to get involved in a full brake overhaul at this stage. All the unions and fittings are rusty as and the chances of getting any of the four bleed nipples out without ruining something looks to be pretty minimal. Having said that, now that rear cylinder has come apart it'll need bleeding anyway one way or the other.
For now I've taken the obvious route, closed the door and quietly walked away.
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