Sometimes it feels like things are just stacked against me. I made a soft start to my condition inspection last week and encountered a parts issue. I had decided that my brake parts were in good enough condition to last until next year so, even though I received the correct brake discs on Thursday, I would wait until next year to install them. Then I inspected the right side wheel and brakes.
You may ask, why didn't you inspect the other wheel last week when you found the issues with the left side? That is a good question, but since the left disc was the more worn of the two and the pads had always worn evenly in the past, I figured I knew what the right side was like. As it turned out, that wasn't quite true. The disc itself was indeed thicker than the left and still serviceable. When I first looked at the pads, I thought they were as well. When I looked closer, however, I saw that all was not as I expected.
It turns out, that for some reason I can't explain, the pads on the right side were wearing more on the bottom than on the top. To make sure I wasn't imagining things, I measured them. The top was at .1485, which is less than the left which were .165, and would still be serviceable, but the bottom measured .1235.
The inboard pad looked and measured about the same. Since I don't think those will last another year, and I have all the parts needed to change everything now (oh yeah?), I decided to install the new parts now.
I took the left wheel back off and had no trouble getting the new brake disc installed. It's interesting how easily things go together when you use the right parts.
This week's troubles truly began when I went to replace the pads. I went to my parts bin to get the new brake pads I had as spares. Ah, right where I thought they'd be. Hey, wait, why do these have dimensions written on them? Hey, why are they worn? NO! these aren't new, these are the old ones from the last time I put new ones on.
I don't know why I held on to those and I really don't know why I put them back in the bin with the new parts. This was truly frustrating as once again, I won't be able to get as far as I expected to.
The even more frustrating part is that I can't find my brake rivet tool. It is in a little brown box and I had usually stored it upstairs in the loft since I don't use it very often. Since I don't use it very often, it usually takes me some time to remember where I put it last time. In this case, the last time I did that I was tired if hunting for it and was determined to put it somewhere easy to get to. Problem is, I don't remember where that was and after looking not only in all the places it should be, or even could be, in addition to all of the places it shouldn't be (and wasn't), I still don't know where it is.
The only good news on that front is that a new one isn't very expensive. The other down side is that all of my brake rivets were in the same box but, fortunately, those are not very expensive either. I should have the new pads, rivet tool and rivets on Thursday.
After all that, I took the right wheel off and put the new disc on it and put that wheel on the left side, since the one from the left side is already on the right side. All that is left is to put the new brake pads on and condition them, then I can put the wheel pants back on and call it good, at least for a while.
Hopefully this is my snag for this year and the rest will go smoothly.
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