Captains Log: Mydate 15082005 EST

As the wife set about cleaning the house, I ventured out into the morning heat to inspect the brakes on the Focus. The wheels came off easily enough, and a quick visual revealed that the brake pads were indeed on their last legs. After studying the complex mechanism that secured the pads to the thingamajig to the rotor, I decided that short of some secret lying in wait for me to discover buried beneath the black grease, I could do this. It's a guy thing. If it's not electronic, it CAN be done.
Then I discover that the bolts mounting the brake assembly to the wheel is a covered hex pin, and as is always the case in situations like this, I had every hex there was just short of the size needed. Well, what the hell, good excuse as any to add yet another tool to my arsenal. So I hop into the goat-mobile and dash down to the auto parts store hoping like hell they have the hex wrench as well as the pads, and that I could afford both. The guy at the parts desk was very helpful, retrieving a new said hex pin to see if the socket hex I had discovered in the tools aisle was the correct size. It was, and the cheapest set of pads were in the budget as well. which is not to say I could actually afford these things, just that something else was going to have to wait it's turn to get paid. One of the rotors was getting pretty badly gouged out and I could not afford to let it go any longer.
Back at ranch, I proceeded to try out my theory that these hex pins were the key to disassembly of the brakes, and much to my relief, they were. After prying apart the pads with a screwdriver, there was plenty of play to pull the caliper off the wheel, revealing the true extent of pad wear. By this time the sweat is really pouring off of me, into my eyes, so I had to take a break to grab a sweat band and grab something to drink. Then it was back to the task, figuring out exactly how the pads were attached to the assembly and prying them loose. The spring clips were alot more complicated than the Escorts brakes, and it took some study to figure out how to manipulate them to get the new pads onto their mounts. But, being the incredibly brilliant and foolhardy do-it-yourselfer that I am, I got them all installed exactly the way I had found them.
The whole thing slid onto the rotor nicely and the hex bolts lined up easily, and within no time, I had the right side completed. Then, it was back on with the tire, jack down the right side, and head over to the left, to repeat the whole procedure, after a smoke break and a drink and sopping some of the sweat off me with a towel. By now my t-shirt beneath my coveralls was soaking wet, and my hands blacker than a republicans' heart. In about two-thirds the time it took me to do the right side I had the left side completed and the tire back on. All that was left to do was test drive it, and after pumping the brake puddle back up, I took a very short trip up the road to listen for the grinding, which was now gone, mission accomplished. When I got back I checked the tires since they appeared to be kind of squat, and sure enough, the pressure in all of them was terribly low, so I spent another 15 minutes with my trusty little air pump bringing them back to their optimum 32 lbs of pressure. Now I had a pretty good idea why the mileage i had gotten during the trip yesterday wasn't as good as I thought it should be.......stupid me should have checked the pressure BEFORE we left....DUH!
I would have planned the much needed oil change for tomorrow, but that's gonna have to wait till payday, which means it won't get done till next week maybe. At least I got the paper trash burned today, another task out of the way, and the house really looks nice after my wife had her shot at it. She even bathed the dog, and brushed out enough hair to make another, albeit smaller, dog out it, which we might fashion into the likeness of a yorkshire terrier and sell to someone for $500. We'll just assure them it's a VERY well trained dog that needs little maintenance, and will never bark.
Oh, and the debauchery turned out quite well, thank you. Since neither me or the wife had to work all THAT hard today and nothing really hurts, we might turn in a repeat performance. Debauchery is fun and economical, and will not impact the budget any more than it has been already. We will have to keep the volume down, however, as the evil twin and her boyfriend will be visiting tonight. We wouldn't want to scald their young, impressionable ears, now would we? He he.