One of Those Days...

Today was supposed to be a laid back day for several reasons, 1 because I have to attend a class and take a test from 8am to 4pm on Saturday for work 2 because from Sunday to Saturday I will not be able to get away from Jr Highers at all, in fact I will be at Hume Lake Meadow Ranch which will be infested with the "drunken midgets" as my friend Daniel would say. Trust me I am not complaining, in truth I am looking forward to it. But this is a long week and without a full weekend before hand (Helping Loren and Carrie move tomorrow) I wanted at least one easy day which would've consisted of laundry, packing and if I were really ambitious house cleaning. Instead I got a call at 8:30am from church asking me if I were on campus and when we could meet. So I got ready and prepped for this meeting, got everything squared away, then proceeded to get involved with other tasks. At lunch I was leaving around the same time as another co-worker and as we approached a stop light I heard the sound of metal grinding coming from her car. I called her and asked her if that was her car, and she replied "you can hear that too." I explained that it was her brakes and that they needed to be replaced, especially considering that she was about to go on a long road trip. So I offered to fix them, afterall it would only take about 45 minutes. So I called a friend to see if he would want to do it at his house just because it would be cool to see him and he and I usually have a lot of fun hanging out working on car or motorcycles. So we get there and start the project off by snapping one of the studs off because we later found out that the guys at Big-O went a little trigger happy with the air guns. DON"T GO TO BIG-O!!! Ok, well I can fix that (for the record I have on other cars...) Next we find out that our friends at Big-O didn't just torque the heck out of the lugs but they did it on the calipers too! So we had to replace one of those as well. OK so I get to the other side and I change out the pads and go to push the piston back in so that the new pads will seat; as I am doing so fluid begins to leak from the caliper. So a 45 minute brake job turned into replacing a caliper, rebuilding a caliper piston changing the brakes and attempting to replace a broken stud. Yes, attempting, we couldn't break the single nut loose in order to remove the plate that held the studs in place. In the picture that is when my friend Wes and I tried to heat the nut in order to loosen it, don't laugh this actually is an effective method of breaking things loose, the problem was that we didn't have all of the necessary tools available. So a 45 minute job turned into about 8 hours of frustration. So much for a low key day at home. At one point I thought to myself, should have just told her, "you really need to take care of that" oh well such is life. So, if you need any brake work done, don't go to Big-O...
...or me. (just kidding if you need help and I can, I will.)