I absolutely NAILED a pothole with my passenger front wheel in downtown Atlanta this morning near Peachtree Rd. Now when I hit the brakes the car pulls to the drivers side so bad the car is almost not driveable. I pulled the wheel and drum off and hit the brakes and the wheel cylinder does nothing. I tried pulling the brake shoes out havening someone hit the brakes and still nothing. I opend the bleeder valve and I am getting brake fluid to the cylinder. It's like the cylinder is locked up or something... What the heck could be the problem. I hit this pothole so hard it felt like the front end should have been ripped out from under the car. I was paying attention to the traffic around me and did not see the hole. Everything else seems to be ok except the brakes... There are no odvious signs of brake fluid leaking from anywhere...
Jamie; check the rubber hose to the cylinder, and the banjo fitting. It may have opened it up when you hit the pothole. Also, check the suspension for bent or broken parts. Potholes are murder on the front end. Check the alignment, as it will effect it, most assuredly. Good luck!
Yea, I'll check everything out Earl. Just eyeballing it, nothing seemed to be bent or broken. My dad says the alignment is relatively easy to set at home with nothing but a tape measure and a couple of rulers.
that kind of alignment will get you to the alignment shop, don't just depend on rulers or tape measure, an alignment needs to be done on a machine so everything is aligned properly, nothing against your dad but experience has taught me to do it right!
My dad ran his Comet around for 18 years doing his own alignments without a problem. Right now I am going to check it like he said to do. If it is off I will get it back as close as possible. I don't really have the money to have an alignment done right now, especially sence the whole front end is about to get rebuilt with disc breaks and stuff. Then I will have a proper alignment done.
That kind of alinement might work.............ON AN MODEL-T with 1inch wide tires and back when 60mph was crazy talk. Just remeber your tires are the only thing touching the road while your 80 there not something to be playing games with and if your even out a fraction of a milimeter your tires will wear improperly and you will most likely end buying new tires in a matter of months and one new tire should easly cover the cost for a shop to do a wheel alignment.
Jamie, for that part of town, you're lucky you didn't fall into a sink hole caused by a busted water main. The mayor's "pot hole posse" lasted until the cameras quit showing up.
Usually when I hit a pot hole hard it knocks the camber setting out, because that's just held in place by an ecentric bolt on the lower control arm. That can't be set with tape measures, you have to be able to measure small fractions of a degree. Tape measures can get you close when measuring toe. Alignments can be done at home, I've been doing my own for about 15 years. But I have the proper equipment; caster/camber gauge, toe gauge, slip plates/turntables.
Jamie, I am with you on this one. I once hit a Pinto in the rear with my 69 VW bug, and the Pinto did not blow up!!!! Crushed the front end up on my bug. My dad and I (I was 18 at the time) used a 20 ton hydraulic ram, a couple railroad ties for spacers, a tape measure, and a nail (the nail was used to scratch a straight line down the middle of the front tires for measuring). When we got done, about an hour later, bending the front end out with the ram, I then drove it to a "computer allignment" guy. He put it on the lift and said "It is too close to perfect to make any adjustments." If you keep the tolerances really close, you can allign the car in your driveway. I would still take it somewhere and have a trusted mechanic verify your adjustments. Hopefully, he will do like mine, and verify, but not charge you.
The tires will be gone very soon. Found a guy that will trade me some aluminum 16 inch American Racing rims for the stock '95 GT rims I have. No way I could resuse the tires, so I could care less about them not wearing properly. I've done thought all this through about what I need to do with the money I got. I just cannot waste money on a full blown alignment that will be pointless within the next month. I will do it with my dad's help. He knows how to set the camber to. Like I said, he drove his Comet 18 years doing his own alignments and put over 350,000 miles on it, on his own alignments.
Jamie, the old school guys can do an alignment very well on these old cars like you are describing. I wouldn't worry about it. just keep checking to make sure you don't see any funny wear patterns, If you do then take it to get it aligned and hope they do a good job. Specs call for + or - a couple degrees and you can get really bad wear even if in specs. which makes it very important to find a really good person to do it if you take it somewhere. Your father can probably do as good a job his way as most of the alignment shops with all the proper equipt. It's all the person who's doing the work.
Jamie; if you get with Frank Cooper, and find out how to get to his alignment man. He did my car a while back, and it has never handled so well. And....it was a very reasonable price. He is in Macon, so it is a bit of a haul, but I trust this guy, and Frank trusts him also, which speaks volumes about his ability. PM Frank or call (he is laid up right now) and see what you can do. You will like the results.
Thanks Earl, I'll look into that. I think I may have ruined my passenger front tire. There is a strange feeling in the steering wheel now that gets worse with speed. Almost like a vibration, but not really. Glad I bought the service plan on my front tires. I'm off to Wally World to have them check out that tire. I gotta feeling that extra 39 bucks for the warrenty and service plan is about to pay for itself.
