Short version- I did a front brake job, and all the (3) hoses..
Long version- 1981 C10 6 cylinder, approximately 80,000 miles. Fullly documented service records since new (in its carfax), no mention of brakes ever. All brakes look good front and rear except for glazed rotors. Hoses look like they are starting to crack.
Rotors were very rustly and glazed. Brake squeek at times under heavy braking. Pads were good, but, its time.
Ordered parts from Napa. They said… these fit your truck.. Wrong. What they gave me did not fit. Rotors were 1.25” thick, orginals were.. 1.00”
Later found out inner wheel bearings were wrong also. Too big. Took 2 days to get parts straightened out.
Brake replacement, new bearings, lots of red grease (on me and the bearings) all went fine.
Hoses were almost correct. The holder brackets not properly located. They were installed.
Problem. One brake hose (RF) where it passed through frame was in-accesible. The fuel line was right next to it, and almost wrapped around it. It was so close to the fuel line that I could not get a flare wrench on it. Someone was on drugs when they routed this fuel line. It wrapped around itself inside the frame rail where the brake hose was, preventing access with most wrenches. I stripped the head off the brake line fitting.. damn. So, OK, replace the hard line. It added about 3 hours of work to get old hose out and new hoses and fabbed new hard line in. The other side took 5 minutes.. It was easy to get at…
Rear hose replacement also too 10 minutes, most of the time working out the correct wrenches. 16MM on one side, ⅜” on the other. I love mixed metric/SAE on these generation of GM trucks. (one of the new calipers had a 10MM bleeder, the other was ⅜!)
Bleeding was easy with the truck on the lift. Used gravity bleeding first, followed by vacuum bleeding. First attempt bleeding at each wheel was sufficient. Ahh. All new fluid front to back…
But. Really, this brake job was not needed. I think there was enough meat on these rotors to cut them once more would have fixed the squeak. Yes, I needed the new hoses and fluid, but everything else was fine..
4 or five days work for a simple brake job (thanks NAPA and chevys fuel line designer). $425 in parts (I know Icould have got better/cheaper but, getting the correct parts can be challenging. That’s why I chose the local supplier. I worked at NAPA for a few years, and they just do not stock what they used to for older vehicles. The warehouse at “my” store was chock full of brake rotors.. Now, about half of those shelves have other parts. Funny, the brake pad section has grown..??
I also addressed a leaking gearbox and anything else I could find to fettle underneath. Reinstalled the spare tire carrier and spare tire. Got it out of the bed. Truck is about to go outside for the winter.. Amazon is delivering new wipers today.
OK. Done.. Drives nice. No sqeak, No pull, nice hard pedal. We live RIGHT next to the Rockies, I took a drive with the dog up there. Smily face.
Thats what I did on my square this week.
Oh, and check out my great new way of putting my wheels on!
