Well the caliper lasted a week and a half and seems to be sticking again, fortunately I’ve caught it before it’s really bad this time and haven’t yet fitted the new pads. It’s done alright for the amount of our salty winters it’s taken.
But hey, every cloud has a silver lining and all that. In this case, extremely, and we all like shiny car bits:
Get this on, get that ancient brake fluid changed and a new set of Brembo’s finest and we should be fighting fit again.
A similar thing happened to my QX two weeks ago. Which initially started as a routine oil change (first one in like five years), and since the car was on a lift one does check the underside as you do. Rear caliper seized. Pads were quite literally gone. Discs were mangled too. Which meant another €150 and another saturday gone. AND NOW the Clutch is starting to slip. Gotta love a 23 year old car with super low mileage, the car is more expensive to buy and everything is junk anyways.
Quick follow up to this, new caliper went on without issue except for the fact the new one had a 7mm bleed nipple as opposed to 8mm. Who does that man? Odd number size fixings are either the devil’s work, or French.
Still, can’t complain, I have brakes again. Fairly certain the brake fluid was original, extremely black and silty.
@Awildgermanappears The joys of taking on other peoples problems. You never know how they’ve treat it despite what the book says. If the car is sound though, a worn clutch and seized caliper on a 23 year old car are probably worth doing.
I’m absolutely crippled now though. Did an Ironman Karting thing yesterday morning and then spent today crawling about under the car with temperatures hovering just a shade above 0.
Saving that for future prosperity!!!
Suddenly I am quite pleased I got the tyres I did, and got the brakes sorted at the weekend:
It’s been a good number of years since we’ve had it this bad, about 6-7 inches now and I cannot praise these damn tyres enough, even in the deep stuff they just seem to bite and go. It’s the ice now that’s the bugger.
If you have a problem, if noone else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire cue the music
(This is sped up, wasn’t going this quickly)
My mate slid his Volvo off a totally untreated country road in the middle of nowhere this morning owing to him being diverted off all the main routes on his way to work. One of the more interesting wake up calls I’ve had. Fortunately shortly after I arrived a JCB rocked up with a plow on and a fat rope and yanked the Volvo free much easier than we could.
Absolutely dismal conditions, the open fields with massive wind were just blowing the snow across and as you can see from that Dashcam picture, you couldn’t see a sodding thing. Wasn’t much getting along there at all, the little bugger performed admirably. I know I’m probably a bit of an idiot for deliberately going where was that dangerous but hey, he was stuck on his own and couldn’t get through to any recovery service due to them being so mega busy.
Finally got around to doing something I’ve been saying I’d do since I got it. The poor DIY paint job on the wheels by a previous owner was full of bubbles and pitting and was letting corrosion build on top of corrosion.
I thought about changing the colour but decided to stick with silver in the end. Got a bit of metallic fleck put in, they shine brilliantly even in the dark.
And in the dark under LED streetlamps:
Of course this being England it’s absolutely pished it down since I picked them up and we’re forecast snow storms from tonight over the weekend, joy of joys.
It’s been reasonably quiet in the world of the Corolla.
Except the near death bit.
Now that the wheels were done, I wanted some minor bits of repainting doing, the big scuff on the front corner and the very faded mirrors. There was an issue the first couple of times at the bodyshop, but the 3rd time was the charm. On the way back all seemed well til I went to pull into my driveway, and the brake pedal felt a bit like it was travelling further than it was meant to. I realised if I pressed on it a bit it’d go to the floor, and assumed this was incorrect even though there was still a little resistance.
Upon getting out, mass brake fluid flood from under the car. Those last few hard presses when parked up had turned a small leak into a mega one, let this be a lesson people - just because the brake lines on your car look perfect, they may still be the original nearly 20 year old ones and have turned to mush underneath where the clamp to the floor is. I had some excellent luck after this whereby my brake flare tool decided to drop to bits on the first flare. A bit of pain given I only really have time for this sort of thing on weekends, and nowhere that sold them was open.
Fortunately, I managed to get another better one out of that fairly quickly (cheers Amazon Prime), sorted the line and then got it up on a lift so I could replace every damn factory steel line, just to be certain. Brakes are one thing I will never take a chance on.
So yeah, if your MOT tester ever gives you an advisory of slight corrosion on your brake lines, change them. These were visually perfect and there was no clue it was going until it did.
After that daftness I thought all was well, and planned to take the Corolla to a Classic show locally. It polished up nice, it was running well, wheels still look excellent, and then a rogue broomhead decided to viciously attack me at 70mph.
I’d seen it fly off the lorry, it was rolling along flat, had it lined up between the wheels then it decided at the last second to ping up.
I wasn’t best pleased, these aren’t overly common and Toyota wanted £245 for it. I’m hoping I’ve found one off a breaker for much less so we will see. Have some pictures of it shining at the show, complete with battle scars.
I love your little Corolla, it reminds me so much of our 84 Tercel SR5 wagon 4x4. You’re doing a great job of taking care of it and I hope you have luck finding that fog light.
Cheers 
I’m still really stuck with what to do with it, I love driving it but I don’t want it to dissolve, and 19 of our crappy salty winters are now starting to take their toll in places. I’m doing the best I can with the paint but it’s thinning in places, and the lacquer is doing what reds do and there are tiny specks of where it’s starting. I reckon there’s another year or two in it yet but I’m not sure I want to let it get extremely bad before doing anything.
Awesome!
tl;dr this one - started making chocolate milk. Pictures speak for themselves. However I swear this is not what it looks like.
So first we have a happy time, fog light was located and now it’s not made of cling film, although I can thoroughly recommend Costco clingfilm as a temporary lens, did a few hundred miles without damage.
Then you know, MOT time has come around, all seemed grand until I was doing my usual coolant checks as it uses a tiny bit. Top up every 8000 miles sort of tiny bit.
Imagine the words that came out of my mouth when removing the radiator cap to find this:
I swear it’s not what it looks like. I haven’t swapped the coolant out for chocolate milk.
It’ll be fine, I just have an unexpected weekend of flushing ahead of me to get the milk/cream cheese out.
Lets hope thats not oil getting into the coolant and is something else.
That looks like mixed coolant, HOAT with Ethylene glycol, flush it soon.
Already beat you to it man, just not posted up yet. Not a chance in hell I was driving it round making cream cheese.
Strangely (or as I’m rather hoping) the coolant that was in was fine with the coolant that was put in to top it up - just rusty. They weren’t mixed types and were fine for a week and about 300 miles, then suddenly in one journey maximum cream cheese.
Tbh it looks a lot more edible than some of those American cheeses…
As a 'Murican, I can confirm
We’ll be having none of them advisories here:
Admittedly it’s original rear brake discs finally had to be changed but no matter, can’t really complain. Also done a few hundred miles now sans any cream cheese in the radiator, I am pleased to report.
Sodding car.
I have no luck with this thing, belts in particular seemingly. June 2017, 21000 miles ago, had a new Gates timing belt kit fitted. Recently the usual whine it does has developed a rattly noise and like a rubbing/grinding when the car warms up.
Of course it couldn’t be an ancillary I could just change cheaply and easily when I get one, no no, the timing belt tensioner bearing is having a bad time and dying, joy of joys.
I hope the boat is quick with the Blade on it.
As that whine had been such a slow developer I hadn’t really noticed how bad it had gotten, it was only when the rattling/rubbing sounds started I had an oh shit moment, and discovered the above. When I first started it up after fitting a new cambelt kit I thought something wasn’t right because it was suddenly so quiet.
Turns out it was actually the idler pulley as opposed to the tensioner, and it got marginally quieter before it was changed. Somehow the tension on it was keeping it in a better state than off the car, where it was fairly obviously totally shagged when just trying to spin it by hand and seemed to be just waiting for the right second to drop to bits.
Anyway, not to worry, sorted now. Still have a dodgy 2nd gear but not entirely sure there’s a lot I can do there without spending a fortune trying to find or get parts for a rare as hell gearbox.
Onwards.
