Date: Wed, 6 May 1998 17:53:31 -0600
Reply-To: Gary Shea <shea@GTSDESIGN.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <Vanagon@vanagon.com>
From: Gary Shea <shea@GTSDESIGN.COM>
Subject: True Lies (was Re: Rear Drum removal)
In-Reply-To: <Pine.OSF.3.91.980506153354.24074A-100000@sherlock.SIMS.Berkeley.EDU>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
I have a little story about honesty. It's sorta relevant
to the drum removal thread.
I moved from Berkeley CA to Logan Utah for graduate school in 1988-1989,
bought a nice used '81 Westy in SLC. Had to get a safety inspection.
There was no place in Logan that I particularly trusted to do it, so
I picked a place at random and hoped for the best. Knowing that the
safety inspection required pulling a drum, I asked them if they'd
use a puller to remove the wheel (I didn't know much about the
Vanagon, obviously!), and the owner said "yep". I asked him to replace
rear brake shoes while he had it on the lift, and came by to collect
it a few hours later, drove out of the lot, and as I braked for
the first corner, felt a powerful rhythmic bumping in the brake
pedal, like maybe about the rpm of the drum going around...
so I took it back to the shop, and asked a young kid there if
he knew how they'd removed the drums. Said his dad whacked on
'em with a sledge until they came off.
Then I talked to the owner (the kid's dad), not mentioning what
his son had told me, but indicating that the drums were trashed.
Asked him if they'd use a puller on the drums. He said yes, they
had, but was willing to fix the problem. He made a big deal out
of doing a moral business (!) and how he was going to do right by me.
Generously gave me a ride back up to campus. En route he bragged
about being a bishop in the Mormon church and asked me how I liked
Utah. I said I liked it pretty well, people were honest, etc...
you can imagine I was giving him a pretty direct stare as I said that.
He did not flinch.
One drum was unsalvageable -- they turned it down way too thin
trying to get it round again. The replacement from a yard
was almost as bad... I bet I know how they got it off! But it's
what I ended up with.
Final note to the story... the parking brake never worked quite
right after that and the self-adjusters never seemed to be doing
much either. Maybe three years ago I replaced the brake shoes
and wiggly drum myself and noticed that the pushrod had been
installed backwards on both sides, or something weird like that
(my memory has faded, I recall something being upside down and/or
backwards). As a result neither the self-adjusters nor the
parking brake were doing anything at all!
A year later I moved to Kansas for more grad school... sometimes
it amazes me that I ever moved back!
Gary
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Gary Shea shea@xmission.com
Salt Lake City http://www.xmission.com/~shea
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