Truck Breaks and Junkyard Adventures.

So the next part of our ongoing saga of fixing the damn truck breaks sometime in my lifetime involved bleeding the breaks. Did I say bleeding the breaks? I meant failure. First off this was like the first warm day we have had in weeks. However the first warm day in weeks does not mean that all the snow had melted so my first task was shoveling snow out from around the truck in the areas we might need to lay down on.

 

Yay.

Second task involved Scott filling up the master cylinder with break fluid and having me very gently pump the breaks so we could test that break hub thing that was a right bitch to get on. So I did that and then of course it leaked like a motherfucker and I had to stop and then Scott crawled under the damn truck and poked at it and then swore a whole bunch. Because of course the lines from the master cylinder would be the ones leaking. You know the lines that get break fluid to the breaks? Those lines? Yeah they were leaking. I realize to the uninitiated this is all gibberish so here have a picture.

 

So then we pull the line off and clean it up and try to put it back on. Which went about as well as you would expect. At one point both me and Scott were under the truck, facing different directions with him holding the line and me trying to thread the bolt on. Of course this didn't work at all ever and finally he tried to rebend the line and then knocked the other top line from the master cylinder off and then we swore a whole lot. Of course at this point I suggested just using JB weld to stick the damn bolts in PERMANENTLY and Scott was all like that just might work but we both kinda knew it wasn't going to work. There was only one option.

We were going to have to pull the damn break hub thing off again.

So Scott pulled the damn stupid motherfucking break hub thing off and in the cold clammy light of a winters day we could clearly see that the top holes, the ones we had been struggling with, were completely bare of threads. It was never going to work. No matter how hard we had fought and swore and cursed and begged the cold uncaring gods of auto repair, it was never going to work. We were going to have to find another break hub thing. Which of course is a part they no longer make anymore.

Which meant we were going to a junkyard.

So we grabbed our shit and some tools and I put medicated goop in the cats eyeballs and then we got in the car and drove. The first scrapyard we stopped at had a nice neat office and was staffed by a nice blond women who had clearly never left the eighties. There was a plastic sign on the counter saying not to place auto parts on it which kind of confused me because I was never really under the impression that junkyards were all that picky about there counters but whatever the fuck. So I just held the part up where she could see it like some sort of fucked up metal peace offering and we asked about it while the damn thing peed break fluid down my arm. So then she was all like, anything that old we just scrap and gave us the name of another place we could try and then we got back in the car and I spotted the greatest thing ever on the way out.

The greatest thing ever.

 Our next stop was an auto parts store where we learned that the part that I was calling the break hub thing and Scott was calling the break distributer was actually called the break proportioner.

Annnd also they didn't have one.

The last place we stopped at was a true to life scrapyard made entirely of mud. We pulled up to a gray dim looking metal building that was your typical half garage half office. Upon entering we were greeted by a vague older looking man. You know the kind of guy who gives you the impression there is no mental activity going on behind those eyes. “You got any cans?” He asked in a wheezy voice. I glance behind me at my 1999 canless Toyota Avalon. Which was the only vehicle in the parking lot. I looked around to make sure I hadn't been sucked into Cormac McCarthy's The Road.

Scott explained that we needed a part. The guy explained we would have to go back into the office. In the office we were greeted by a dark haired women sitting behind a desk talking to a older guy who apparently had nothing better to do then sit in a scrapyard office and talk up a receptionist. In the back another older looking women was washing down tables. For some bizarre reason the whole place smelled like cookies.

“You gonna help them customers!?” Shouted the lady from the back, still washing down shit.

So we explain what we need to the two people sitting at the desk who look like we are interruptions into their flirting/drug dealing and then they tell us to go out back and look for Gary. We go out back. Out back turned out to be a wasteland of muddy cars. Many of which had been crushed and flattened into huge pancake like stacks that rose up around the borders of the wasteland like a very ineffective fence. Mud and snow mixed together under the tires of huge car moving machinery. We stopped next to a green building that smelled like pure ethanol and watched the giant car magnet thing move car frames around like they were made of tinfoil.

Finally a guy driving a huge piece of machinery pulled up beside us and yelled something out the window I couldn't hear and then Scott held up the part like it was a magic talisman and they mined something about Chevy and then he yelled some directions over the engine and we were off. What followed next was the most surreal adventure ever. One isle over I could hear the giant car magnet dropping shit while we wound our way through cars that looked like they had been flung down from on high by an giant car magnet. The first truck we checked was completely on it's side, wheels and bed long gone. Even though it had the part, the break proportioner was too rusted and shot to use.

We picked our way out of there and into the nest row over. Which is when I discovered that the “snow” was merely a thin blanket of white over a foot deep hole and I had to do that thing where you jerk forward and then grab you own shoe to keep the earth from ripping it off.

I was pretty over the junkyard by that point. Of course the next truck's break proportioner was shot too. Defeated, unwilling to try another avenue and possibly lose a shoe for good this time we trudged back to the office. Once inside we explained that we didn't find one while the lady in the back shouted more advice about customer service. We smiled and backed out the door, back past the wandering can man and got into our car, still holding the greasy useless break proportioner.

We never did fine Gary.