It was Luna-time Last Night

“Is there any way possible I could drive Luna Saturday afternoon?” Victoria asked me during dinner last night. My immediate response was, “No way.” Then I thought some more about it and told her, “Maybe; if there are no issues with her brakes, the weather’s nice, and we get the blinker switch to work and the rest of the lights to function.” So right after dinner, she and I made our way to the garage to knock some items off the to-do list.

The first check of the evening was a hard, harder test on the brake. I sat in the driver’s seat and pressed the brake pedal as hard as I could a few times. No leaks; no descending pedal; test passed. While Victoria attacked more of the rusted areas, specifically the battery area and the engine and trunk weatherstripping channels, I disassembled the front wheel bearings, cleaned the parts (with Victoria’s help) and re-packed the bearings with grease. With the hubs off, I took a close look at the front brake assemblies. Everything looks new. How nice. Even nicer was the lack of leaking brake fluid, rust-free brake lines and crack-free brake hoses. We’re calling the brake system good-to-go – or in this case good-to-stop-going.

While I had the front wheels off and the font end up on jackstands, I cleaned the zerk fittings and lubed the front suspension. I’m a little concerned that the tie-rod ends don’t move freely. While the steering is responsive, I can’t move the tie-rod ends independently from the tie-rod. I’ll keep my eye on them over time and hopefully they’ll loosen up with usage.

On to the rear. We removed the left rear wheel, and then, after some beating and banging and a liberal application of penetrating fluid, the drum. Again, more new-looking brakes components behind the drum and a nice rust-free line and a crack-free hose leading to it. On to the last wheel. This one had to give us issues, of course. We beat, we banged, we applied liberal amounts of penetrating fluid, and we even broke out the torch. All without success – the drum would not budge. We let it soak overnight and knocked off for the night.

One other task Victoria insisted we complete and that was putting and hooking up the new battery. That went well and included wire brush-off and primer coating of the hold-down bracket.