Back to the Fleet

After a nice vacation to visit my folks in the not-so-sunny SF Bay Area, I’m back at managing the fleet. Last night Ringo’s rear brakes needed my attention. I removed all the emergency break cable, cleaned off the corroded surfaces, soaked it in oil, greased it where it runs through the armor, and reinstalled. Then I replaced both sets of rear shoes and adjusted them as best as I could. Finally I adjusted the emergency brake cable to give just a few clicks of the handle before engagement. After all that, the pedal still goes down farther before getting hard. It is, however, stopping about an inch above the floor. I couldn’t give him a test drive since I had gotten so dirty and it had gotten so late. Ariel did a test stop or two in the driveway for me, but wasn’t real happy about the pedal travel. She felt it was safe enough to drive to work, so I’ll do some test driving tonight. I’ll also attempt to get the self-adjusters to work before I yank the wheels and hubs and spin the adjusters.

While I was in CA, I attempted to buy a couple front valance pieces for Lucy and Heidi, but struck out. Mel’s Vairmart had one, but I ran out of time to get to his place. True to its reputation, the Bay Area provided me with tons of old cars on streets and in driveways. I took some pictures of a few, but didn’t get too carried away with the Kodak moments. Click here to see my set on Flickr.