Technical SOMETIMES YOU CAN'T SEE THE PROBLEM & HAVE TO ASK FOR HELP

This past Thursday night at our monthly club meeting one of the members expressed his frustration with the brakes on his newly purchased '55 Chevy that he picked up in Texas after selling his '32 coupe.

The car was well built but lacked a long list of things needed to be done to make it a driver.
He has had the car about 3 months and said he had spent the last week trying to get the brakes to work properly.

This morning a couple of us went over to see if we could help, as it turns out sometimes a man can't see the obvious problem right under his nose, I really can't blame him for the problem but what we found was the front calipers were mounted upside down, he said he tried to bleed them but he didn't realize they were on the wrong side, they would never bleed with the bleeder valve on the bottom.

We swapped the calipers out and within a hour we had a good brake pedal, reminds me of the old, " can't see the forest for the trees".

I guess we all have had a simple problem and and ask for help only to realize you just didn't think it through. HRP

 

Taking a break, holding your tongue just right, a second pair of ears, eyes and hands or a good nights sleep can help as well.

 

It seems like that is far more common than most folks think. Pops up here quite often!

 

I resolved the same situation here. They had little experience and tried to fix it themselves going by a YouTube video.

Sometimes it's just an oversight. Absolutely true that old guys have likely forgotten more than others will ever know. LOL

Regardless, good that you guys could get some extra eyes on it and help him out. I bet he's feeling better. So his '55 is almost on the road now?

 

Yes, The brakes were installed by the previous owner/builder but never been on the road.
It appears the guy had done a cosmetic restoration, what showed looks great but looking the car over closely there is a lot of substandard work, the engine was reported to be a fresh rebuild but when the pan was dropped it was full of sludge as was the valve covers, he paid a lot of money for the car and it will be nice once it finished but he is going to have to dump a lot in it to get it where it needs to be,.

There is no way I could lie to anyone about the condition of a car I was selling, I have been told that I down play the quality and condition when the new owner gets the car. HRP

 

^^^ many times we are all too anxious when buying a car that we over look stuff, or figure that the problems found will "be easy" to fix - the '63 Nova SS that I have now have had some of of those "easy to fix" gremlins that took a lot of time, and spending money that had not planned on - often the worst glitch is not "seeing" hidden rust and body damage problems - your friend finding problems with "fresh rebuild" is another tough one -

 

Pretty cool of you all for helping out like that. Bet he learned a thing or two and will make good use of it.

 

Nope, in my sixty three years I’ve never had it happen to me, nope never. lol

 

I had a car with front calipers mounted upside down due to clearance issues for the lines. I simply pulled the two caliper pins and bled the calipers with my vacuum bleeder, then reinstalled them again. They work fine upside down, just need to be turned over to bleed, which is pretty easy.

 

Years ago, a friend said he couldn't get his 350 chevy to run. I went out to his shop and the door was unlocked and he was gone. I cranked it over and it was obvious it had a timing problem. He had an open Motor's manual laying behind the truck. I glanced at the page and saw Cadillac across the page. I changed to chevy and put the plug wires in the correct location and it fired right up. Simple enough mistake. Here's what bothered me. This man was in his 60's. He was an electrician and was the go to man that people used to seek for help. He built a Pitts airplane in his garage and was a stunt pilot. That day it became obvious to me that at some time, I would make mistakes that I never would have imagined. Not all of these stories will be age related but not many don't need some help sometimes. We all have different amounts of knowledge and exp. To be helpful and not remind someone of a shortcoming forever is the mark of a friend.

 

I've had ot cars come in the shop with bad brakes and the wrong side caliper installed and owner insisting it was the right one because the auto parts store guy said so one guy even insisting it didn't matter since the fluid was under pressure..........................................

 

Danny, don’t feel bad about upside down calipers. I’ve had guys at work do it too.

 

Glad everything worked out. We all have those stories. The 56 I bought and at least drove a few miles was a frame off with a few “minor” items that I could see and feel on the short drive. It had only 5-10 miles since the restoration. Before I started to use it i decided to look at the brakes just as a precaution everything was perfect with the minor exception of no cotter pin on the left front. Needless to say everything was looked at very closely and true to form the other problems were very minor.
How that was missed on the restoration alludes me but it may have been late at night when the brakes were done. It was not done by a shop and the gentleman doing the work over the years really did an excellent job.

 

I went to family dollar today and I said you don't have any bread. The lady said we can't get bread. I said I can't either. She said have a nice day.

 

I did the same thing years ago. I couldn't bleed the brakes and finally called a buddy for help. He came over, looked at the brakes and started laughing. When I asked him what was wrong, he looked at me and said "When you fart in the bath tub, which way do the bubbles go ?". I looked back at the calipers and saw immediately the bleeders were at the bottom! I took a lot of ribbing for a while after that.

 

Probably installed by one of those clowns who think you can "gravity bleed" a brake system.

I've told the story on my self before but when I built my T bucket that was the first Chevy V8 I had ever owned having owned a nailhead Buick and a 350 Olds Before. Fought it for a couple of nights after work and no go. Woke up at 03:00 o'clock one night with the revelation that I had wired it for an Olds rather than Chevy, went out in the garage in my bath robe, swapped the wires around and busted it off with open megaphone headers and went back to bed and slept great.

 

I posted this before.

That tip of the tongue, sticking out the corner of a house-painter's mouth, combined with that characteristic one-eyed squint they use instead of masking tape — or better yet, a screwdriver. Take off the door furniture? Can't be done! Rather spend an extra two hours very carefully painting around the edges ...

Perfectly possible: you just have to use lighter-than-air brake fluid

 

Years ago when I 1st started learning the car repair business (late 60's) l looked down the shop and there were 4 guys there looking over a new 429 short block one of the guys was putting in his 66 LTD. I walked down there and listened to them discussing the front crank damper. Seems the belts wouldn't line up when it was installed. There was over 100yrs combined experience standing there looking at it. I took one look at it and could see they were trying to install it upside down. At the proper time I picked the damper up, flipped it over and proclaimed "try putting it on the right way" then walked away quickly. I can still hear the laughter. My old man laughed the loudest. In their defense, at the time it was a brand new engine just being installed in some Ford cars.

 

I've gravity bleed to get the lines full. Followed by a pressure bleed to insure no air in the lines. Worked real well.

 

That reminds me of something a friend of mine related. He'd been called to a building site because the site foreman had an emergency. The perforated extruded cut face brick my friend had specified won't work! The foreman held a brick up to show how wind and rain would go straight through the brick. Without a word, my friend took the brick, turned it 90° so that its bedding face was horizontal, put it back into the foreman's hand, turned, got back into his car, and left.

 

You have made this statement in the past . And I’m curious.

I have “gravity bled” hundreds of brake systems over the years .
Either doing maintenance and a brake fluid flush or after replacing a line / caliper / wheels cylinder etc .

now I always finish with a manual bleed using 2 people .

regardless of how I bleed a system “ gravity” , pressure bleed or vacuum . I always finish with a tried a true manual “ pump , pump , HOLD “

 

That's why we can never do brake jobs properly here- the calipers are ALWAYS upside-down! I gotta get me some of that anti-gravity brake fluid!.

 

sometimes when its not your problem you can think a lot clearer then when it is your problem.

 

we have semi-annual safety inspections in our car club patterned after the NSRA inspections. It is surprising how many loose suspension bolts, bad fuel lines etc. we find. It's that second set of eyes that always helps spot the obvious.

 

Which is why, if you can, sometimes walking away and going do something else can help break that set of mental rails.

I've had many an epiphany while using that theory. Now not to say all the bright spark ideas have been right, but some of them have.

Phil

 

I would have been the one in Danny's bunch to unbolt calipers and flipped them 180* then gravity bleed them then flip them back just as they were.

 

I think we all have done something similar at some point. As we age and gain experience, I think we often unknowingly gloss over steps in troubleshooting because we “know” it’s not such and such. A fresh set of eyes comes in, follows the steps from A to Z without skipping over any letters, and the problem becomes obvious.

An older man I worked with as a teen drilled into me a phrase I use a lot solving problems, both mechanical and in business - “Stop fixing WHAT is broken, and fix WHY it’s broken. Look at the entire picture.”

40+ years later I still hear him in my head.

 

I like that. I do the same thing, I believe. Why, why, why.

Ben

 

Had a friend last week who's 88 years old call me with a wiring problem. He has an off topic pro/ street car and still wrenches on it all the time. He said the T/S indicators light up when he steps on the brake. Told him the 4 way flasher was probably pushed in but he said it didn't have one. Went over sat in the car reached down and pulled the switch off. He was so embarrassed that he had called me. I was glad it was something simple because it gave us time to chat a while.

 

Well, here's my screwed up brake story. Many years ago I was working as a brake and front end mechanic at a Ford store in San Diego. An E 150 came in with the stated problem that the front brakes would not stay adjusted I put the car on the rack and sure enough they were way out of adjustment. So I adjusted them and did a short road test. The more I hit the brakes, the lower the pedal got. I put the car on the rack and readjusted the front brakes again because they were fully down. I figured I better pull the drums and see what was wrong. What I found was both front brakes were assembled backwards ! I call the service writer and he brought the owner out to see the problem. It so happened that the owner was a doctor that thought that if he used a manual, he could do his own brakes. I also should mention that the entire brake assembly was soaked in brake fluid, so everything needed to be replaced. It was then that the doctor told me his story. He used a picture in a a Mitchell manual of an assembled front brake, however he failed to notice the arrow saying front. He assembled one side completely backwards and used it as an example for doing the other side, which he assembled backwards also. I said that the brake shoes were soaked with brake fluid and would need to be replaced. He complained loudly that they were brand new and why couldn't we just wash them. I then pulled the boot back on the wheel cylinder and fluid dripped out from there. I told The service writer that we would also need wheel cylinder kits. Another loud protest from the doctor, that he had just rebuilt them also. I looked at the service writer and said, "add in two new wheel cylinders also". The doctor complained a lot but okayed the proper repair. When done, the van stopped true and the pedal didn't quickly drop to the floor. Amazing ! I often though about that doctor, remembered his name and looks, and swore that if I ever walked into a doctors office and found his name or saw him there, I would run for my life and not look back ! It still amazes me that he successfully drove from his home to our shop and didn't kill himself, somebody else or cause a major accident. I sure hope he wasn't a surgeon and had to look at pictures to operate!