Thursday, April 19, 2018

Odyssey rear brake line replacement

The Honda van failed the state motor vehicle inspection on several counts . 
 So I figured I might as well start with the easy bit . Light my home built wood stove and back the car in the garage .
Seems the rear brake lines have succumbed to seventeen years of  winter road salt and calcium chloride. These are the short hard lines that goes from the flex line along the rear swing arm to the brake cylinder .
Easiest way to get them off is just snip them with a pair of dykes . That way you can get most of the rust off the fitting with a steel brush , as well as crimp the line shut so it don't leak all over the place and . . .
. . .  get your ten millimeter socket to fit . If you try removing it without cutting the line you can only use an open end wrench and that will usually mangle the fitting and then it will never come off . A bit of PB Blaster helped loosen things .
Once I had the offending piece on the bench I taped the fittings back on just to have an example of what I needed . Purchased some new 3/16 line but of course the offering from NAPA was too long .
After some measuring with a piece of wire, I determined the necessary length and cut the new pipe .
And deburred the inside edge of the cut pipe .
Then we need to add the flare back on the cut end . Traditionally we use one of these tools to do the job .
But for once I got lucky and found this splendid and rather expensive looking, Eastwood brand pipe flaring tool, among dad's arsenal . Truth be told it was a bit puzzling as I had never seen such a device ever . Hmmm , I think I can figure this one out .
After a bit of head scratching I selected the right size mandrel to fit the 3/16 pipe .
And setting the mandrel in the tool affixed in my bench vice , I set the pipe to the appropriate depth .
And clamped it all down tight . The idea here is to do a double flare. The first step should crush the pipe down on itself and effectively fatten up the end so it has a shoulder around the outside perimeter. So you select the correct mandrel from the rotating turret, and swage the captive pipe back on itself .
So that it looks something like this .
Then you rotate the turret and select the mandrel to swage the inner bevel on the pipe .
End result is something like this on the outside of the pipe .
And the conical bevel on the inside of the pipe . So far so good .
Then using this handy pipe bending tool I bought for fifteen dollars . . .
. . . we need to bend the pipe into some semblance of the original .
Kinda , sorta , like that ????
Hey that's not so bad , and it might just work .
After some further persuasion and a few choice words, it looks like it might do the job . Note this is the left side of the car . So this is the first side I actually did and the learning curve was a bit steep , thus the brake fluid over the back side of the backing plate .
As the brake shoes were a bit worn . . .
. . . I replaced those as well while I was at it .
I taught myself the easiest way to deal with those pesky springs is to put them on the shoes and then fit the shoes to the hub .
Not bad for a hack . I even remembered to take photos before I dismantled the brakes so I had evidence of how it all was supposed to go back together .
Then you bleed the brakes to get the air out of the line . Real handy with the one man brake bleed device . A bit of fiddly work to adjust the shoes so they are tight and the emergency brake actually works .  But I got it sorted after a couple tries . Next chapter we deal with replacing a broken engine mount , worn sway bar bushings , and a minor patch on an otherwise solid exhaust system .


12 comments:

  1. Sure beats having to pay for new brake lines while out on the road. Nifty tool you found there. Does a nice job.

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    1. Yes, it just don't make much sense to pay four hundred dollars for a job on a car that at best books for fifteen hundred dollars. My total out of pocket cost was about eighty dollars, and forty five of that was the brake shoes.

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    2. I felt lucky to get away with my brake work on the van for less than $450. They had me at their mercy and we were a long way from home. It's not the sort of job you do on the side of the road.

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    3. When you are on the road they do have you over the the barrel of a gun. It is difficult to carry all the tools you need for every possible job . But I never travel without a bag full of the basics.

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  2. You seem to be quite a multi-talented fellow, Michael.

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    1. Yes, a jack of all trades, and master of none . I muddle through and occasionally I succeed . Truth of it is, I hate spending the kind of money they typically hit you up for on stuff like this, if I think I have a chance of figuring it out on my own. Most of the time, like on this one, I am teaching myself how to do the job so that is rewarding on its own .

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  3. you're a genius. i don't know most of the words you used!
    wanted to take wood shop and auto shop when i was in school but girls were denied.
    tells you how long ago that was.

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    1. Genius?? not hardly... most that know me know for a fact I am far from the sharpest pencil in the box. I wish shop class had been available where I went to school. I might have actually learned something. I learned to muddle my way through these jobs on my own out of desperation. It was either fix it myself or walk, as I did not have the money to pay someone to repair it.

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  4. Replies
    1. Desperation Douglas, sheer desperation. After about 45 years of having to mend things on my own, I might have leaned a thing or two.

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  5. Thank God we don't have vehicle inspections here. I have enough BS to attend to without that.

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    1. The weather here does raise hell with cars and anything over ten years old here has issues, but the state inspection is all a bit of a scam. They nit-pick just to find something to hit you up on for a pile of money, and most that don't know any better just shrug and say OK and give the the credit card. That is why it becomes essential to be able to fix it yourself if you drive older cars like I do.

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