The Unofficial "Ask a Stupid Question" Thread

These days I'm buying powerstop carbon-ceramic. They don't require as much heat to work effectively as pure ceramic..
 
CDsDontBurn said:
For brake pads, do I want ceramic or semi-metallic pads?

This one is always hard to me for some reason, and IDK why...
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I rebuilt the entire brake system on my '97 Thunderbird Sport about two years ago, just because of age. Everything was still factory original, including the pads, but the car had only 70K miles on her. I don't know what the factory pads were on an almost 30-year old Sport, but I think they were some kind of organic pads way back then. If not, someone correct me.

I replaced all four rotors with new Motorcraft ones and installed high-quality ACDelco Gold/Professional Semi-Metallic pads from RockAuto, since Motorcraft no longer makes her pads.

Two years later, no brake performance issues or brake dust besides a very small amount.
 
MadMikeyL said:
I believe he meant “as well as picks to separate the hoses from the nipples”, as in get a pick between the hoses and the metal barb to make it easier to get the hoses off after you have removed the clamp.
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See he read it fast…
Damn Siri type.
 
My tires are about four years old (with the exception of the left rear tire which had to be replaced due to damage). They were once rotated front<>rear. I notice that the front right tire has worn faster than the front left tire. Even wear, and no drivability issues such as pulling to one side.

After some googling, I understand that this is actually normal due to the crown of the road.

So my question...: if I rotated my tires left<>right (both front and rear), meaning that my wheels would be on the wrong side of the car, would you all hate me?
 
1997ThunderbirdLXV6 said:
My tires are about four years old (with the exception of the left rear tire which had to be replaced due to damage). They were once rotated front<>rear. I notice that the front right tire has worn faster than the front left tire. Even wear, and no drivability issues such as pulling to one side.

After some googling, I understand that this is actually normal due to the crown of the road.

So my question...: if I rotated my tires left<>right (both front and rear), meaning that my wheels would be on the wrong side of the car, would you all hate me?
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Only Matt (@XR7-4.6 ) will hate you because he's so pedantic, lol.

As long as the direction of the wheels are all oriented the same way, nobody (else) will be the wiser. That said, if your current tires are directional, they should only be rotated front to rear.

FWIW, I rotate my tires at every oil change (5k mile intervals) and they will be doing the "X" pattern this time around since my tires aren't directional.
 
...upon closer inspection, it seems the zip tie was placed there to prevent the parking brake cable from slipping out of its receptacle. Not sure what to think about that.


Another question: I noticed on the rear left brake that the inboard pad is only half as thick as the outboard. What would cause that kind of wear?
 
Don’t rotate your tires side to side. The belts in radial tires wear into one another in a particular pattern based on rotation direction. Changing that after a tire has been rotating the same way for a long time is likely to result in a shifted belt, causing pulling, vibration, or even tread delaminating, forcing you to buy new tires. If you are going to rotate side to side, you should do it every 5-6k miles religiously, and then the belts will never get a chance to wear into each other, however once they have been going the same way for 10-15k miles, reversing its rotation is likely to do more harm than good.
 
MadMikeyL said:
Don’t rotate your tires side to side. The belts in radial tires wear into one another in a particular pattern based on rotation direction. Changing that after a tire has been rotating the same way for a long time is likely to result in a shifted belt, causing pulling, vibration, or even tread delaminating, forcing you to buy new tires. If you are going to rotate side to side, you should do it every 5-6k miles religiously, and then the belts will never get a chance to wear into each other, however once they have been going the same way for 10-15k miles, reversing its rotation is likely to do more harm than good.
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Now you tell me...the work is done! Ugh.
 
If you run them backwards, they can come apart, I killed a spare that way. It came apart in less than 60 miles.
 
Just drove around the area, about 8 miles, and I actually felt the tiniest of a vibration in the steering wheel. It may be my car's normal feel, and I'm just oversensitive to it now; or it may be the tires.

So they're going back now.

Those 8 miles couldn't have damaged them, right?

Omg, I should just not mess with stuff. Period.
 
1997ThunderbirdLXV6 said:
Just drove around the area, about 8 miles, and I actually felt the tiniest of a vibration in the steering wheel. It may be my car's normal feel, and I'm just oversensitive to it now; or it may be the tires.

So they're going back now.

Those 8 miles couldn't have damaged them, right?

Omg, I should just not mess with stuff. Period.
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"Omg, I should just not mess with stuff. Period."

Messing with, or learning to fix things, is never a waste of time as long as you're learning.
Also, there's a plethora of information here, on the web, and in the factory service manuals to learn from before doing the work.

I rebuilt my entire braking system a couple of years ago, including rebuilding the calipers, replacing all four rotors with Motorcraft ones, and replacing all the hoses and the master cylinder on my '97 Sport. Everything was factory original, including the pads (except the brake fluid), but the car had only 68K miles on her. But I decided that the age of the parts demanded a thorough refresh of the entire system.

The last time I did brakes was sometime in the mid-1990's...and that was just replacing the front pads on an '89 Bird. Not a big deal...and we had no useful Internet back then...LOL.

But for my '97's brake system rebuild, I had no idea what I was doing, because I had never done such a thing before.
But I wanted to do it, regardless of the large intimidation factor.
I spent over a week watching Youtube vids, reading online articles, and studying the Ford factory service manual.
During this time, also ordered all the parts and got tools & other things ready in my garage.

Then the day came to tackle the job. I thought it would take me a couple day. No, no...it took me two weeks to do the job. Two weeks of her on jackstands, while I toiled away, taking my time, triple-checking work, and doing everything properly. Several days of that time were chewed up when I spent a couple frustrating days trying to rebuild the rear calipers, before learning that I needed a special tool...and Gordon, @supergordo, came to the rescue and was able to do it for me because he had the tool. More time was chewed up on stupid things that only experience or a knowledgeable person can teach you about (for example, replacing the rubber seals on the calipers and getting the pistons to slide back in was vexing me...until Gordon came to the rescue again and advised using a tad of Vaseline to properly lubricate them before reinstalling the pistons...and what was taking days to fail at doing suddenly took moments to successfully do).

Also...very important: Take tons of 'before' photos & vids, so that you have a reference point to look back on, in case you need to see how something looked or goes back together, in case you get lost. They're a tremendous help.

In the end, everything came out almost perfect. Gordon inspected all my work and said it was great...and I think frankly surprised. The only issue was flushing and bleeding the brake lines, which to this day aren't right. My brakes are a bit spongy and we don't know why, although Gordon helped me flush about a million gallons of brake fluid through them. We suspect that there's an air bubble trapped in a caliper and have had no luck chasing it out. I've been putting off trying other things to chase the air bubble out because of issues with my back that make doing the work agonizing...but one of these days, I'll get to it or Gordon will help again.

Anyway...the point of this was to give you an example of how not knowing what you're doing can be addressed by taking your time to read, research, and learn about the work you're going to do before you do it. You have two choices: Remain intimidated by the work and don't learn and don't do it...or prepare yourself properly about the work and go in with the confidence to do the work. Mistakes & goofs will happen...but that will always be part of the learning process.

I wanted to do this brake job myself, so that I could learn and understand better how it all works and how it can be serviced...and to save a ton of money not taking it to a shop, where it'd be a coin-flip if they did the job right. I learned it, I did it, I'm no longer intimidated by brake work, and I'm confident the brake work was done correctly. And here we are two years later and the brakes are working fine...except for that damn air bubble.8-)

Here's my BirdCats posting about that brake job. In the posting is the link to my Google Photos page where I posted my notes & photos of the brake job, in case it helps anyone:
https://forum.birdcats.com/threads/disc-brake-system-rebuild-replacement-servicing-02-2024.539/
 
1997ThunderbirdLXV6 said:
My tires are not directional, only the wheels are.

Why would there be a zip tie here? Both sides. That can't be factory, right?
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Yes, the zip tie is factory. When I rebuilt my factory original brake system a couple years ago, it had the zip tie on the left-rear caliper.
Here's a photo I took back then:

1773636909425.png
 
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