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Guy Fiero - The Brakes |
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Oh God The Brakes The main "must-have" that I knew about getting into this was that the brake lines were just about rotted through. Not a big deal, I replaced all the brake lines on Mr. Saturn, this will be nothing. As a little treat to myself, I decided to spring for some extremely nice pre-bent brake lines, so they should just bolt right into the car. Now if you know anything about working on cars, then you know that the word "should" means absolutely nothing in this world. As such, the lines most certainly did not just bolt right into the car. This whole rigmarole did reveal a couple of interesting things about this car, though. Remember our professional mechanic friend? Turns out one of the lines had already blown out, and he decided that it was acceptable to replace just that one instead of doing all of them. Doesn't seem super professional to me, but okay. Now this oversight was entirely my fault. The car had two lines running to the back, one on each side. I made the natural assumption that these were for the left and right rear brakes. However, upon replacing them, I learned that both rear brakes share a single brake line, and the other line is actually for the clutch. Somehow, I had gotten lost in all the other weirdness of the Fiero and completely forgotten that this car is, in fact, mid-engined. Including the transmission. Obviously the brake line kit did not come with replacement clutch lines. I could've bought a replacement for that too, but a quick look at The Fiero Store revealed a $200 price tag for the privilege. I decided I would practice float shifting instead. Unfortunately, due to past trauma involving Mr. Saturn and bleeding his brakes, I put off bleeding the Fiero's brakes for quite a while. In fact, between finishing installing the brake lines and actually bleeding them I procrastinated for about 5 months! After my award-winning procrastination session, the time finally came to bleed the brakes. Generally, brake lines hold fluid better when the fittings are tight, so I went around the car and checked them all to make sure they were. Good thing too, because both of the front calipers were loose! Generally this is an incredibly easy fix, at least until you're tightening the bolt and it suddenly gets loose. The threads inside the front right caliper completely stripped out. This is quite bad, and meant I now had to buy new calipers. Great. One RockAuto shopping spree later and we're finally back at it. I managed to install the new calipers without destroying them this time, and so came the fun part. Bleeding the brakes. In theory, brake bleeding is quite simple. Hydraulic systems (like the brakes) operate on the principle that fluids cannot be compressed, so any force applied is transferred straight through them. Of course, this only works if there's no air in the brake lines, as air is famously extremely compressible. So we bleed the brake lines to get all the air out, that way the system can operate to its maximum potential. Doesn't sound too bad right? Wrong. Mr. Saturn famously refused to bleed, causing many nights of trauma. Despite this, I was sure that the Fiero would be different, and so I opted for the lowest-tech bleeding method known to man. I like to call it "Stick A Clear Tube Attached To the Caliper In A Bottle Full Of Brake Fluid and Pump The Brakes Until You Don't See Air Anymore: The Game". When bleeding brakes, you generally start with the longest brake line. This isn't usually a problem, it just might take a while. However it can become a problem if you don't properly keep an eye on the master cylinder, and run out of brake fluid. You Do Not want the master cylinder to run out of brake fluid. Not only does this introduce air back into the system, defeating the entire point, but it introduces air into the very start of the system. This essentially erases any progress you've made, since you now have to bleed the entire line again to get all the air out (in addition to bleeding the master cylinder itself). Needless to say, this was Not Pleasing. However, I soldiered on regardless. I bled both the rear brakes, and moved on to the front left. This one was being a bit stubborn, so I decided to employ the pressure bleeder. The pressure bleeder, as the name suggests, works by forcing brake fluid (or air) into the master cylinder, pressurizing the system and forcing the fluid (and air) out of the caliper. This actually worked quite well, and within seconds there were no more air bubbles. Unfortunately, the same could not be said for the driver's side. There was actually remarkably little flow, so I figured I'd get in the car and pump the brakes a little while running the pressure bleeder. This definitely did the trick. In fact, it did the trick so well that it managed to completely empty the master cylinder within a minute. That's right, it happened again. If I was displeased the first time, then falling victim to the same thing again was downright upsetting. At this point, I decided to call it a night and come back tomorrow. The next day, I came back and started by bleeding the master cylinder again. This wasn't too painful thankfully, and eventually it stopped producing bubbles. At that point, I could finally move on to bleeding the last line. Of course, it decided to be stubborn again, and after a while I decided to use the pressure bleeder again (being much more careful this time). Strangely enough, it worked similarly to how it did on the passenger side, and within seconds it was bled. Now obviously, before I can call everything good I need to test the brakes. You can only do so much on a lift, so I decided to get the car back on its wheels for the first time in months and take it around the driveway. For no reason other than ensuring that the brakes were in tip-top shape, I decided that the best testing method would be to dump the clutch, rev it to the moon, then slam on the brakes. For science. At this moment, it felt like the car had revealed itself to me. Keep in mind that I still have never actually driven the car beyond going around the driveway, meaning up until this point I had never had the opportunity (or excuse) to really give it the beans. It was glorious. The engine came to life, the wheels lit up, and it screeched to a halt even faster than it got going. Despite being quite possibly the shortest pull in history, I was hooked. This was great motivation to finally take care of the last system preventing this car from being road legal, the cooling system. Continue to The Cooling System
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