For whatever reason, I'm not very motivated to continue with the installation of the front passenger side speaker set. I've been procrastinating starting for a bit but remain interested in working on the car. Rather than force myself to complete the speakers now, I'm going to move on to something else that does interest me and I'll come back to the speakers later.
I decided to replace the brake lines due to rust on the metal portion of the original lines. The rubber wasn't cracking excessively but I need the car to be safe. After the old lines were off, I searched for a part number without success but found a date code of 5/29/92 on the rubber so they are original.
The new lines went on easily but it was quickly apparent the copper washers which came with the new lines were thinner than the originals. I measured and confirmed the originals were 2mm thick while the new ones were 1mm. I don't think the old ones will seal so I used the new, thinner washers.
I pulled the caliper and brake pads since I had them accessible. The brake pads look to be in good condition but there was no disc brake lubricant on the pads where they contact the piston or caliper housing. The pins didn't use disc brake lubricant but some type of standard black grease. I addressed those things and put the calipers back together using some blue Loctite.
The pads are blue and have WAG MX-1-EE31381. I suspect they are some form of Wagner brake pad but it isn't any number actively used. I used Chat GPT to research it and based on the MX-1-EE part, it could tell these were made between 2002 and 2005. The rotors are not particularly smooth so the entire package is a little dated. It works so I expect to leave it alone for now as it is working and invest the money in an upgraded option a little later.
Since I had the front wheel off the car, I weighed it and the wheel and tire combination is exactly 53 lbs. The General G-Max 255/40R17 weights 24.1 lbs so the wheels are roughly 29 lbs each.
A few days later after work, I performed the same job on the passenger side of the car. Two days later, I decided to tackle bleeding the brake system. When I walked out into the garage, a significant amount of brake fluid leaked out of the front passenger brake hose where it connects to the caliper. I suspect the issue is the 1mm thick copper washers is causing the banjo bolt to bottom out before the washers are compressed enough to seal.
I searched for some 2mm washers but none of the local stores seem to have them. I did find O'Reilly sells a new banjo bolt with two washers and those are 2mm thick (Brake Best H9469-2). Unfortunately, the store only had one bolt in-stock so I had to order the other one online. When it arrived, it was the right part number but a completely different bolt with 1mm washers.
The brake fluid had not leaked since installing the parts I found at O'Reilly on the passenger side. It seems the banjo bolt was bottoming out due to the thin washers. Luckily, that wasn't happening on the driver side so I didn't require the new banjo bolt but I thought it would be good to swap them both.
I ordered Russell Speed Bleeders for both the front (#639590) and back (#639540) brakes. They make bleeding the brakes especially easy which was important. The brake fluid in the car was especially dark. While it is certainly overkill, I ran a full quarter of Prestone DOT 4 through the system to fully flush it. That required over 100 pedal depressions across both back wheels and 40 or so on each of the front. By the time I was done, what came out of the brake system was the same light yellow that was going in. The following is a picture is how much I bleed from the passenger rear and the color.
I'll ultimately end up upgrading the front and rear brakes but I don't know when that will be so replacing the front lines now and the fluid is a good safety measure. I probably should have just done the front pads and rotors too but what is there seems fine and I didn't want to waste money on something I would not use for the long term.
I took the car for a drive and found the pedal was soft. I expect that when the passenger front brake leaked out, it resulted in air in the master cylinder that despite my rather heavy bleeding of the front brakes didn't full address. I bled the master cylinder making a huge mess of everything. The mess resulted in pausing the project to wash the underhood area, floor, and then consequently the rest of the car.
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