Learning about VW brake calipers

 The challenge in keeping up with the blog is remembering to take pictures of stuff so I have something to show you.

Remember our 2005 VW Golf TDI?

Pictured here at ChowdaQ in 2016 this is the car I've owned the longest. Actually it might be in the running for the vehicle I've owned the longest. I think I got it in 2015.

So the old Golf is hard on brakes, especially the rears. I've posted a bunch of times about doing brakes on that car. One of the things special about brakes on a newer VW is that the rear calipers need to be twisted as the piston retracts. An easy(ish) way to do that is with a tool like this:

And I've done it several times now, the tool quickly pays for itself and I don't think it was terribly expensive.

The problem is that every time I've done the brakes on this car I've ended up with terrible pedal feel and the parking brake didn't work well.

Recently the pedal started to pulse badly during braking so I knew it was time for yet another brake job. Fortunately the parts aren't too expensive so I ordered up new pads and rotors all around. At the same time I knew I'd have to address the parking brake which didn't work at all.

After finishing the brake job I knew I was in trouble, pedal feel was AWFUL. Pedal goes straight to the floor. I know what you're thinking "air in the lines" but I hadn't opened the system so where would the air have come from? Plus the parking brake didn't work at all.

So, since I'd never done it I figured I'd replace the parking brake cables. Not a terrible job and they're weren't too expensive. Sadly, after the job was done nothing had changed. So I decided to sleep on it for a couple nights.

Well, theres the problem. Sure, right. Let me explain...

What we're seeing here is the rear of the passenger side caliper. At the bottom left of the picture there is a pair of vice grips attached to the parking brake actuator. The actuator is fully extended in this picture, so its bottomed out but isn't causing the brake pad to contact the rotor.

When I retracted the piston I retracted it all the way so the new pads would clear. In doing so I've retracted the piston too much so the piston isn't moving enough to do its job. Disc brakes are self adjusting so eventually the piston would adjust itself but commonly the adjuster gets a little stuck. I could actually see that in the parking brake actuator, it didn't retract well. A little squirt of oil helped. I cycled the parking brake a couple hundred (no joke) times but it just wasn't adjusting, or at least not enough to matter.

Heres the fix, you're looking at the caliper standing on its side. The cube thing inside the caliper has little nubs on it to engage the piston. Normally to retract the piston you turn it clockwise while pushing it in. The other tool won't work for that since you need to turn counter-clockwise which would also retract the tool.

Here my thumb is pushing down on the cube thing while I turn it with a big screwdriver. It takes a lot of force but fortunately it only needs to move like 1/8 of a turn.

This was all terribly difficult to photograph so please excuse the terrible pictures. I wanted to get the calipers balanced so I set them so the pads just touch the rotor when the jaw is open about 1/4" which is just under half the travel. In retrospect I'd probably go a little smaller, maybe 3/16 or about 1/3 of the travel.

With all that done pedal feel is MUCH improved and the parking brake finally works as it should.

The state of MA requires a yearly safety inspection. The parking brake was keeping me from getting it. Annoyingly these days they give you a sticker for the month your previous sticker expired so although I had it inspected in May I got an April sticker. Oh well...

Something a little odd

 I've been spending a lot of my time working for the snowmobile club. I don't know if I've mentioned it much on here but a couple years ago I became president of the Coldbrook Snowmobile Club. It's one of those things I'd never really intended to do but I guess that describes my life...

Anyway, this time of year the club is busy grooming the snowmobile trails. This involves smoothing the snow out to make the ride less of a kidney buster. Left to their own devices the trails turn into a series of bumps that beat you and your machine to death.

So a couple weeks ago I was taking a machine south and came to a gate. This is not uncommon, the Army Corps of Engineers owns the land and put up gates to keep cars out. The problem here is that I couldn't open the lock on the gate. In the end I had to back the machine 500 yards to a place I could turn around. 

The machine in question is the club's 1989 Tucker Sno-Cat

Shown here passing another gate this thing is a pig to back up. After 5-ish years of running the machine I've finally gotten adequate at backing it up but its still a big challenge.

Buddy Ben called the Army Corps and asked them to fix the lock. They tried it and discovered they couldn't open it either so a couple days after that we cut the lock. I don't have a good picture of the  cutting or the aftermath but it was a challenge to cut because of its placement on the gate.

Of course the Army Corps wasn't too happy that we had cut their lock and "Destroyed Federal property" and they wanted us to go to a locksmith to get it replaced.

Well I know a little about locks so I retrieved the remains (in the top center of the pic above) and after soaking the lock itself in a variety of magic substances we managed to get it freed up and the lock core removed.

The lock core, is unusual, you can see it's listed as an MX13 which is a proprietary, access controlled core. Meaning they only sell them to locksmiths.

The lock is a common Masterlock Pro 6621. They run about $50 apiece with no core. I managed to score 4 of them on eBay for $50.

Once I had the lock in hand it was simplicity to transfer the lock core into the new lock. If you need to do this you have to open the lock and there is a little allen screw down in the hole that the moving side of the shackle goes into, then the core drops right out. Do be careful as theres a little shim thing on the end of the core, don't lose that. Fortunately it only goes together one way so as long as you have all the bits its no big deal to put back together.

Interestingly Army Corps wanted the old lock back but mostly because it was numbered on the plastic cover part.

I had to pass through that gate again a couple days ago and I'm pleased to report that the lock opened just fine. The problem the old lock had, I think, is caused by somebody using oil in it. Do not oil locks, the oil attracts goo that will seize the lock causing it to get stuck. The variety of solvents I ran into the old cylinder all ran out brown with chunks from the oil in the lock.

I use Houdini Lock lube which I think I got from Amazon, on all my locks. Its some kind of dry lubricant in what I think is an alcohol carrier. It smells like citrus which is nice and doesn't attract dirt.

Back again for another new year!

 I see I've done it again, no posts since September. It was a busy fall. One of my big problems is just failure to document. I need to remember to take pictures of stuff.

Anyway, when I was a kid on Christmas morning my mother would "make" cinnamon buns. I put make in quotes because she really just popped a Pillsbury can.

A few years ago, for Christmas, I snagged a can on cinnamon buns and was disappointed with the quality. You really can't go home again.

I can't remember if it was last year or the year before I decided to make my own dang cinnamon buns and fired up the bread maker. I changed up my usual dough with added sugar and they came out pretty good. 

For Christmas 2025 we kinda went crazy.

On Christmas eve we put together 3 bread doughs by hand. Looking back I don't appear to have written about making bread before which surprises the heck out of me. Anyway we threw together my standard bread recepie:

1C flour
1tsp salt
5/8tsp yeast
1 1/2C water

and let them rise overnight.

In the morning we rolled them out thin and made cinnamon rolls and 2 different styles of cinnamon bread:

I'd originally intended to just do cinnamon rolls but Angie had other ideas.

The thing on the left is a loaf of cinnamon bread, it's upside down which makes it look weird.

In retrospect the middle thing looks like a fox. They curl up like that to sleep. Next time we make one I'd put ears on it.

Overall as an experiment these were delicious and we'll be making more soon.