Brake Dancing

Well, you know how it goes. When it rains, it pours. In the last month, Louie and I have had several repairs on our van. We really can't complain, since our van has about 164,000 miles on it. We love our van, and it has been a wonderful vehicle. AND, we are not ready to give it up yet. We love it for our 'Goodwill Hunting' adventures, as we can haul home about anything we find. We are not financially ready to replace it. It still drives and rides like a new vehicle, but in the middle of last week, I started hearing some rubbing noises going on in the rear, like in the rear left wheel. Our brakes have a habit of squeaking after it has rained, and after you apply the brakes a few times, the noise goes away. This time, though, the noise needed some investigation. We decided the investigation should occur though, about 9:30 Friday night, after we had filled it with gas for our trip to Milwaukee. Louie removed the left rear wheel, and discovered that the hardware that holds the brake shoes in the upright position was rusted and broken, and indeed, the brake shoes were rubbing against the drum, AND it was not going to be taking us to Milwaukee on Saturday. Now, Louie works for a couple of really nice guys who own the local Ford Dealership, so he called one of them and asked if we could borrow a car to go to Milwaukee. As always, he graciously agreed, and lent us a 2007 Ford Taurus.

Louie became a Ford technician shortly after we graduated high school, and worked for about 17 years as a technician. Then, 17 years ago, he became a Service Manager. His hands now, are clean and soft. Today, he went back in time, to his days of greasy hands.

This is the side with the broken brake parts. Louie ended up replacing the brakes, hardware, etc, and turning the brake drums.

He thought it was only right to do the other side while he was at it. It's a good thing he did, because he said, although the parts, like the other side, were not broken, they were frozen, and he doubted that that brake had even moved for quite awhile. He also replaced the wheel bearing, because it was about to break also. Good timing, huh?

So.....like I said, we have had lots of repairs in the last few weeks, but we can tell you now, that the front and back wheels, suspension has all new parts, so we should be good to go.

We believe that God protects, and although there were no major catastrophies with our defective parts, we were given warning ahead of time, and we listened to the warnings. God is good, and we feel blessed................AND I feel blessed to have such a wonderful, sweet, caring husband who used his day off to fix our van for us, to save us labor costs. That means so much to me.

All fixed!