Sometimes the Obvious isn't the Obvious

Flyn

Go ahead. I'll catch up.
Moderator
TCG Premium
Mar 1, 2004
68,052
27,984
Selling homes on the Gulf Coast of Florida
So my two daughters attended the concert at Soldier Field Saturday. I had to pick them up from the train station early Sunday morning. I pull out of the driveway in my Concorde and hear a grinding from the rear passenger wheel. Park that car and take the Cobra to get the girls.

Today, my son and I pull apart the wheel assembly. Take the caliper off and the wheel is still grinding. Bad wheel bearing, right? I tell him to continue disassembly and I head up to AutoZone to order another bearing. Get back home and check out the disassembled bearing. It spins freely. WTF? We take a closer look and discover that whoever worked on the car before we owned it left a piece of an old parking brake shoe wedged in behind the new[er] shoes. After owning the car for months, the piece must have worked its way loose and was jamming the wheel up. Too weird.

So, when you are working on your cars and something seems obvious... maybe it isn't. :)
 

nytebyte

Not Politically Correct
Mar 2, 2004
13,627
20,958
Interesting and true.

Had something similar happen to me on an old Toyota. Wheel was constantly squealing until you stepped on the brake. Figured the bearings were dry, so I took of the rotor to have a look. In those days the wheel bearing was under the brake rotor and you could just pull it out to grease it.

The wheel bearing still had grease on it, but I put a little extra on it and then went to put the rotor back on. That's when I noticed a huge gouge in the inboard part of the rotor. Turns out a pebble had become stuck between the rotor and brake pad. How it got in there, I'll never know, but after prying it out with a screwdriver and reassembling everything, the noise was gone.

Didn't bother to replace the rotor or brake pad since I was a broke college student. Figured the pad would reseat itself anyway.
 
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