Just leave it alone

I operate in life by making basic assumptions about things.  One of those things is that if you're attempting to do a relatively simple job on a car, you have some sort of clue about what you're doing.  I get that not every person is blessed with mechanical ability.  I am, to some point, but not to the extent of a lot of people I know.  For instance, I'm not the guy you're gonna call to hang your kitchen cabinets.  I can, though, and have learned out of sheer necessity, how to do stuff around the house, which comes in handy.

I have been working on Miss June's hoopdie.  The brake pedal goes all the way to the floor and after bleeding the brakes on the car, it still did.  Following the natural progression of car maintenance, and understanding that someone had changed the brake pads on the car, and with the help of the interweb, I determined that the brake master cylinder was bad.

I'm glad I changed it, because it was full of gunk and crud and brake fluid that, when drained, looked like dark green extra virgin olive oil.  But still, the brakes would not build up pressure.  I'd removed the front wheel on the driver's side and noted that in fact, new pads had been installed.  I removed the passenger wheel and noted that new pads had NOT been installed.  That's a bad thing.  I'd also noticed that the caliper hadn't been correctly installed on the old pads, so I fixed that yesterday.

One of the rules of airplane maintenance troubleshooting is that we cause our own problems.  If you fixed something and now something else isn't working, it's a good idea to go back and look at what you did.  That's how I went back to the driver's side of the hoopdie and pulled off the brake caliper.

I found the problem.

This used to be a brake caliper.  The thing you see sticking out shouldn't be.  It used to be the rubber seal around the piston.  While the thing isn't leaking fluid, it's not building up pressure either which allows air to get into the brakes and causes the pedal to go to the floor.  The piston is supposed to be smooth.

Just what happened here, I have no idea about but here are some friendly tips to changing your own brake pads.

If you don't know what you're doing, don't do it.

Yes, you have to change both sets of pads.

If the rotors need turned, get them turned.

Use a "c" clamp to compress the piston.  It keeps the seal from becoming damaged and they're like ten bucks at the store, or cheaper at Harbor Freight.

Now that I know what's wrong, I can set about fixing it.