It's not supposed to be easy....

Life isn’t supposed to be easy.  We learn best from our experiences, and by making mistakes.   We dont learn by things being easy.  Something I tell people at work all the time, anyone can be an engineer when everything works, its when things dont work that people are challenged.  

That’s kind of the point, we are supposed to have to work through issues to figure things out.  Not only does it help us learn, it also helps us have that feeling of accomplishment.

Hmm feeling of accomplishment, how many people understand what they feels like?

One of the best ways to learn from things being hard?  

Buy a 40 year old vehicle.

As you may or may not know, I bought this car a little while ago

The previous owner did a disc brake conversion on the front of the car, which is awesome.  Except for the fact that he put drop spindles on the car and the frame is now 1” off the ground.  Looks cool, but you cant drive it anywhere.

Well, that wont be too hard, simply put standard spindles on the car, right?

HMM, well the “kit” the guy put on has cast spindles that include the spindle, steering arm, caliper mounts, etc.  Also through some help from HeartbeatCitycamaro up in Detroit, I worked out the kit put on the car is for a 69 Camaro.  Different calipers, different hoses, etc.

OK fine, bought new spindles, caliper brackets, etc.  Planned to take the steering arms off the old drum brakes, which I told the guy to give me since he still had them.

I managed to take everything apart and put the new spindle on.  Not too much trouble.  I had worked out a way to support the lower control arm with a jack while I swapped spindles to keep me from having to release the spring, tension it back again, etc.

Hmm, thinking about a problem, working out a solution, trying it to see if it works, feeling of accomplishment afterwards....

I go to put the rotors back on, they don’t fit.

I measure them and they are 12”.  I wonder how big stock rotors are.

Well, the answer to that is 11 ¼”

Back to the on-line store I go and order new rotors, and wheel bearings while I am at it.  (and cotter pins to replace the one I had to cut out)

Next step in the progress would be to get all the parts in and see if it fits, or if I end up having to go to step 3 to replace something else, but let me tell you, I have learned a lot about the front brakes,  front suspension, and steering on 1^st gen Camaros.

Of course, the other issue that you noticed in this process is that I am using the old steering arms, which have 40 years of gunk on them.

Yes, Gunk, it’s a technical term.

Hmm, what am I going to do about that.

Yep, that’s right..

DD