Sunday Fun

I've gotta start off by thanking my friend Robert & his wife. Robert for giving up part of a Sunday to help me experiment with the car. And his wife for letting him go out and 'play cars.' Where I live doesn't lend it self to working on cars, and he happens to have access to a space with a lift & tools. Plus, he's banged around with cars from time to time for longer than he probably cares to remember.

On the agenda for today: Brakes

The first thing we tried was to find out whether Honda Insight rear drums would simply 'plug-in' as had been bandied about in random corners of teh interweb. Like I said before, at $60 for an insight drum .

And the answer is:
*No*

Based on our looking, we'd have to replace the drum & shoe assembly. Which might be an option if we find that on the cheap-cheap. But, otherwise, we'll pass for now.

So, on we moved to the front brakes. I ordered some performance oriented pads: Hawk HPS, and a set of 'blank' Brembo rotors. Yeah, I know, 'slotted' or 'drilled' is the 'way to go'. But, I need an extra set of discs 'just in case', any performance gain they provide is just chalked up to the name. Plus they were only a couple bucks more than Honda OEMs. So, I get to learn something along the way.

Robert did most of the work, while I stood around and watched/learned. Handing him tools, hold this part, "don't touch that", and generally trying to be as helpful as possible. We had things installed in about 2hours or so. Then after some debugging and bedding, I had exactly 10minutes to get to work (yes, on a Sunday) on time. Which means I owe him lunch at some point in the future :).

So, thanks again Robert, because of you I'm all set for this weekend!