Economist Mom, Toyota man, and the broken window fallacy
August 23, 2009
U.S. President Obama took power in the face of a global financial crisis and an even more dramatic economic downturn within his country. His inauguration marked a turning point: government repudiated its belief in the invisible hand of the marketplace and opted for a much more interventionist stance. Massive bailouts to the failing auto industry ensued, and Canada and Ontario rapidly followed suit to protect Canada’s share of the market. With this activism came protectionism, and a strange new business market emerged by the summer of 2009. Obama’s Cash For Clunkers campaign offered up to $4500. to an owner to scrap an older vehicle and buy a new one. $3 billion evaporated in weeks, and the car market has been skewed once again in favour of the immediate sale over the long term relationship with the customer.
As the billions ran out, Edmunds.com posted an analysis suggesting that every clunker retired actually costs the U.S. people $20,000, a classic illustration of the broken window theory. Then economistmom.com released an article entitled Could I Really Kill My Clunker? “It just seems very wasteful (and somehow ‘heartless’, even with a car) to prematurely end a ‘life’ that still could be valuable to someone–doesn’t it?”
Many owners don’t want a new set of wheels. I drove my ’95 4Runner to 370,000 km just to see how long it would last. Then my friend Tony took it to 400,000, and it’s still going. It has driven clean through every eTest it has ever had, and gives mileage in the mid twenties. Why should it be taken off the road?
Toyota seems to have come up with a stimulus plan for those who see the fallacy in the argument that a broken window is good for everybody. For Tacomas registered in the rust belt, they’ve retroactively extended the corrosion warranty on the frame to fifteen years. This addresses a problem on a number of truck frames purchased from Dana, a California supplier, which made it into production without proper corrosion protection.
The program has produced a good deal of Internet buzz. Toyota’s offering to buy back terminally ill trucks at 150% of retail value. An extravagant gift, but not an absurd one in the face of the current blizzard of handouts in the automotive trade. More significantly, they’re replacing frames on trucks in good condition which do not pass inspection. This is a big job, but in a week or two the truck comes out of the shop with a new frame. The owner gets a free loaner in the meantime. For the vast majority of Tacoma owners, the program means a free frame inspection, minor frame repairs, and an extensive anti-corrosion treatment to extend the life of the truck’s frame to at least fifteen years.
A program like this appeals to men who like their machines. I looked on a driving site (canadiandriver.com) and a tractor site (tractorbynet.com) to get a sampling of how North American men feel about this realistic, if generous, extended warranty program. A new metaphor seems to have emerged. The phrase “Toyota has stepped up” appeared in a surprising number of the postings I read. It will be interesting if the phrase goes viral, appearing in mainstream media as well as on Internet discussion boards.
The Buzz:
On canadiandriver.com, Snowman commented: “Because Sudbury is in the salt belt I know of three Tacoma owners that had their trucks inspected at the dealer and received 1.5 times the book values on their Tacomas. One guy paid $8500 and received $13k and promptly bought another one from the dealer. How many manufacturers would do this? The word of mouth advertising has been amazing and has many people I know talking about the commitment Toyota has towards their customers.”
On tractorbynet.com, Matt Jr. wrote: “Although I’m glad I own a Chevy, I still think the Toyota is a good truck. The domestics would have a hard time living that one up.”
TCowner added: “I agree that Toyota, Nissan and some of the others are treated a little easier than the domestic manufacturers when it comes to defects but man, this is an ingenious marketing move. I have no idea what this will cost Toyota but this decision will bring more customers into the showroom. Ford beats up Toyota on their weak frame and how it flexes so much more than the Ford. But I think it’s pretty safe to say that neither Ford nor GM would ever consider an extended warranty program like this which would include buying the truck back at top book value.”
Podunkadunk commented: “Ford’s running a nationally televised TV commercial right now and in it, they are stating ‘Quality that’s now equal to Toyota’… I doubt it, but hey…it’s their nickel.”
Dfkrug reflected the attitude of many posters: “Toyota is far from infallible, but they have stepped up numerous times when problems arose.”
And finally, a Dr. Spock wrote: “A good reputation can go much further than a good product. If you have a good product but a bad rep, no one is going to buy from you. If you have a good rep and a so-so product, people will still buy from you because they feel they can trust you.”
2001 – 2004 Canadian Tacoma Owners take a look
August 17, 2009
I found this on Edmunds.com. Toyota’s serious about fixing rusty frames.
2001 – 2004 Canadian Tacoma Owners take a look.. copied from Yotatech
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Subject: Advanced Notification on Customer Satisfaction Campaign 917 – Warranty Coverage Extension for Tacoma Frame Rust Corrosion Perforation
For your advanced information, TCI will be initiating a Customer Satisfaction Campaign 917 on certain 2001 through 2004 Model Year Tacoma vehicles to extend the warranty coverage for perforation of the vehicle’s frame caused by rust corrosion.
In order to receive the warranty extension, customers must bring in their vehicle to an authorized Toyota dealer for inspection and to have a Corrosion-Resistant Treatment applied to the frame and (where necessary) any frame repairs performed.
Q1: What is the condition?
A1: Toyota has received reports regarding a number of 2001 through 2004 model year Tacoma vehicles exhibiting excessive rust corrosion to the frame, causing perforation of the metal.
Q1a: What is the cause of this condition?
A1a: The frames on a number of vehicles may not have adequate corrosion-resistant protection. This combined with prolonged exposure to road salts and other environmental factors may contribute to the development of excessive rust corrosion in the frames of some vehicles. This is unrelated to and separate from normal surface rust which is commonly found on metallic surfaces after some years of usage and/or exposure to the environment.
Q2: What is Toyota going to do?
A2: Although the vehicle’s frame is covered by Toyota’s New Vehicle Limited Warranty for 3 years or 60,000 kilometers (whichever comes first), we at Toyota care about the customer’s overall experience and confidence in their vehicle. To assure our customers that we stand behind the product, we will extend the warranty coverage, for a total of fifteen years/unlimited mileage from the vehicle’s in-service date, on the vehicle’s frame for this specific condition, subject to the terms and conditions outlined in the owner notification letter.
Q3: Is it a safety issue?
A3: No. All iron based metallic material will eventually rust. This issue is related to inadequate corrosion-resistance protection, therefore, we believe this is a long term durability issue.
Q4: Is this a recall?
A4: No. This is an extension of the warranty coverage on 2001 through 2004 model year Tacoma vehicles for perforation of the vehicle’s frame caused by rust corrosion. This warranty extension, subject to certain conditions, will be provided for a period of 15 years with no mileage limitation from the vehicle’s in-service date, for this specific condition.
Q5: Why is Toyota launching this Customer Satisfaction Campaign?
A5: We at Toyota care about the customer’s overall experience with and confidence in their vehicle. To assure our customers that we stand behind the product, we are providing, subject to certain terms and conditions detailed in the Owner’s letter, an extension of the warranty coverage on certain 2001 through 2004 model year Tacoma vehicles for perforation of the vehicle’s frame caused by rust corrosion.
Q6: What are some of the terms and conditions of the Warranty Extension?
A6: In order for the warranty enhancement to apply, the customer must bring the vehicle to a Toyota dealer before October 31, 2010. The dealer will inspect the condition of the frame and apply a corrosion-resistant treatment at no charge to the customer. Owners of affected vehicles will receive the details of this program in the owner notification.
Q7: Does this Customer Satisfaction Campaign apply to rusted body panels?
A7: No. This Customer Satisfaction Campaign only applies to the frame of certain 2001 to 2004 model year Tacoma vehicles.
Q8: Are 1995 to 2000 model year Tacomas covered under this program?
A8: No. Toyota launched a Customer Support Program in early 2008 for 1995 to 2000 model year Tacoma vehicles.
Q9: Are there any other Toyota or Lexus models included in this program?
A9: No. This Warranty Enhancement only applies to 2001 to 2004 Model Year Tacoma vehicles.
Q10: What is Toyota’s standard rust perforation warranty coverage for the frame?
A10: Under the Toyota New Vehicle Warranty, the frame is covered by Toyota’s New Vehicle Limited Warranty for 3 years or 60,000 kilometers (whichever comes first). This is typical practice in the automotive industry.
Q11: When did you learn about this condition?
A11: We began to investigate this issue in 2001 through 2004 trucks in the first quarter of 2008.
Q12: What is involved in the corrosion-resistant treatment?
A12: Any Toyota dealership will inspect the condition of the vehicle’s frame and apply a corrosion-resistant treatment. The treatment will be applied to both external and internal surfaces of the frame to enhance the corrosion protection of the Tacoma’s frame.
Q13: How long will the corrosion-resistant treatment take?
A13: The treatment process is an overnight process. However, depending upon the dealer’s work
schedule, it may be necessary to make the vehicle available for a longer period of time. During the corrosion-resistant treatment process, however, the Toyota dealer will arrange for a complimentary loaner vehicle for the customer’s use at no charge while the vehicle is being treated.
Q14: What is the warranty on the corrosion-resistant treatment?
A14: The frame on Tacoma vehicles included in this program will be covered by the warranty enhancement. The enhancement, subject to the terms and conditions outlined in the owner notification letter, is for a period of 15 years with no mileage limitations from the vehicle’s in service date for perforation of the vehicle’s frame caused by rust corrosion.
Q15: What if a vehicle has already experienced this condition?
A15: Any Toyota dealer will inspect the vehicle’s frame and apply the corrosion-resistant treatment if the frame is not perforated due to this condition. If the inspection of the vehicles confirms excessive rust corrosion to the frame causing perforation of the metal, Toyota will, at its option, either repair or repurchase the vehicle.
Q16: What is Toyota going to do if perforation of the vehicle’s frame caused by rust corrosion is found?
A16: Upon confirmation, Toyota will, at its option, either repair or repurchase the vehicle.
Q17: Is there any special consideration in the case of vehicle repurchase?
A17: In the case of repurchase, Toyota Canada will reimburse the customer for the value of their vehicle up to 1.5 times the Canadian Black Book® Suggested Retail Value or at original MSRP when the vehicle was purchased, whichever is lower. The vehicle will be assessed as a vehicle in excellent condition regardless of the vehicle’s actual condition; however, a deduction will be made for moderate damage and/or missing components. Owners will receive detailed information about the terms and conditions for this program in the owner notificat
O Edward, thou art mighty yet.
August 16, 2009
It’s too bad Ed’s around so seldom any more.
On federal politics: an interview with Marjory Loveys
August 14, 2009
Marjory Loveys worked for years in the Prime Minister’s Office. I leaped at the chance to talk to a woman who understands federal politics. Marjory is running for the Leeds and Grenville Liberal nomination.
Why is it important that the Liberal Party of Canada form the next government?
It’s worth looking at the current government and defining for ourselves what makes people so uncomfortable with Stephen Harper. For me there are two things: 1. he is mean and divisive, and I fear that over time Canada will become like him, meaner and more divided; 2. he seems to have very little ambition for Canada. I don’t see any big ideas coming from Stephen Harper; I don’t see big plans for progress for Canada. I don’t see him excited about new industries, new technologies, or major reforms of any kind. He likes the oil sands, law and order, and ethanol. That’s about it.
Yes, but he’s an oilman, from Calgary.
He’s no oilman. I worked with guys from the oil patch and they were builders. They wore iron rings and they built things. Stephen Harper is not a builder. He has plenty of ambition for himself, but not for Canada.
What’s Michael Ignatieff doing talking up the oil sands?
It’s a big industry and a big resource, and it has to learn to operate sustainably. In Calgary there are lots of iron rings and a can-do attitude. In terms of climate change if we had fewer economists and lawyers and more engineers, we could accomplish a whole lot. It’s like anything else. You don’t do it until you’re pushed, and the trick for government is that we will push them in a way that works for them.
Engineers are taught to solve problems, and that’s what politics needs: people to solve problems. That’s what I did for ten years in Mr. Chretien’s office: listen to all sides. Find an approach that is supportive, not destructive, that works for everybody.
One blogger suggested that Michael Ignatieff should stop trying to appear a statesman and speak to Canadians the way he would talk to members of a book club. Are there enough readers in Canada to make Michael Ignatieff our next Prime Minister?
I look at Mr. Ignateiff as someone who is learning very quickly in one of the toughest jobs in the country. He has a strong philosophical framework for the job. He has actually thought about the role of government. He is liberal in the finest sense of the word.
Mr. Harper is like Mike Harris: he doesn’t believe in the organization he is leading. He is there to weaken it, not to make it work well. He has instructed his MPs to make Commons committee work totally partisan and dysfunctional. If Conservative Party of Canada MPs don’t like where the committee is going, they often get up and leave.
Stephen Harper is caught up in an ideology of not believing in government. He does not believe in government as a force for good. By contrast Michael Ignatieff believes in a government which functions well and is doing the right thing.
George W. Bush’s ideology demanded that he cut taxes, deregulate, and wage war. He left the United States bankrupt. To what extent has this Republican trend influenced the Conservative Party of Canada?
One of the great myths is that Liberals are spendthrifts and Conservatives are good fiscal managers.
The Chretien Liberals inherited a huge deficit from Brian Mulroney. By the end of the Chretien years we had surpluses that were being used to pay down the nation’s mortgage. Stephen Harper increased spending and cut taxes to the point where the surplus was gone before the recession began. With no rainy day funds, the entire stimulus package was funded by going into debt. No prudent family would run their finances this way. We have seen this pattern in Saskatchewan, and in the United States in Republican years. The right wing ran up the debts and the left wing paid them off.
What local and national challenges will the next government face?
The big challenge for Canada over the next few years will be to recover from the recession. What I would push very hard for is more help for small business because they are spending lots of money on stimulus. If you are a car company it’s great, if you build infrastructure it is great, but the vast majority of enterprises in Leeds and Grenville are small businesses, and Ottawa hasn’t beefed up support for small business.
Your next hurdle is to gain the nomination. Why should members of the Leeds and Grenville Liberal association choose you as their candidate?
I know how government works and I know what it feels like to be in a small business and feel that you’re not being heard. I grew up in a village in Oxford County and I have seen a lack of understanding of rural and small communities in the federal government.
Mr. Ignatieff has made a commitment to use a rural lens on his policies. This is his way of recognizing that one size does not fit all and he is committing that all of his policies will work for small towns as well as for cities. I’m particularly interested in day care programs, for example. They will need to be designed quite differently in rural communities than in downtown Toronto.
The plight of Suaad Hagi Mohamud
August 12, 2009
The Toronto Star is full of the story of Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon and Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan
This is ugly. It looks very much as if the cabinet has decided to let the Somali woman stew a bit just to give the redneck voters something to feel mean about. This divisive, mean-spirited attitude, separating Canadian citizens according to skin colour, harkens to the very worst traditions of Republican bigotry in the United States. We don’t want the ghost of American racist Westwood Pegler here. We don’t want our conservative-minded voters to be invited to “get their bigot on” as Pegler famously suggested. That’s not what Canada is about, and if this sort of garbage produces political gains for Stephen Harper and the CPC, then Canada has already become a colony of the United States.
A disquieting view from Chaffey’s Locks
August 11, 2009
This evening we continued a 40-year ritual when I took my bride to The Opinicon for her birthday dinner. The grounds were as exquisite as ever. The oaks on this lot must be some of the largest in Ontario, and as well kept as those in Cataraqui Cemetery, another favourite tree-hugging destination.
But it was way too quiet around the Opinicon for August. It looks like a carefully-tended ghost town. That’s an oxymoron, I guess. Most cottages had no cars around them. Only a few spaces in the parking lot were taken. The dock was a quarter full. The dining room echoed. I’d think ten percent of the spaces were occupied. Yet the food and service were good. That’s not the cause.
At the store we asked. “Where have all of the Americans gone?” The answer lies in the exchange rate. At the moment the premium on the U.S. dollar is only 3 cents. The counter lady told me that when it drops below fifteen cents on the dollar they start cancelling. But this time some cancellations were because of lost jobs. There are a lot of desperate people out there who simply can’t come to Canada on vacation this year.
Sheltered by our trees and pensions, we’ve been cut off from the desperation of those around us so that we only notice when they are no longer there.
So another historic eating place is in danger. I wonder if local diners could help out? The fillet mignon was great, and prices are more than reasonable. Go have a meal in Chaffey’s Locks! We can’t let The Opinicon sink because of a bad year. Otherwise where would I take Bet for next year’s birthday dinner?
Notes from the other side of 60
August 10, 2009
They streamed in from Toronto, Lakefield, and Westport. The Kingston contingent had just gained a new granddaughter and couldn’t make it this year, but the rest of my classmates from Westport Public School, The Old Eights, sat down to a Saturday lunch featuring some of Newboro Lake’s finest bass fillets and abundant conversation. This was the year when we (all but me) turned sixty, so before we broke for an all-aboard tour of the property on the Ranger, we put together a few observations and yarns for the benefit of readers who have yet to reach that august plateau.
On Aging:
Ice cream is its own reward. Eat it while you can. Don’t go to a fortieth high school reunion without a large-print nametag or no one will recognize you. Accept the fact that gravity rules. What will fall will fall, be it body parts, kidney stones, hair, jowls, eyelids. So. We are still well and enjoying each other’s company, despite the failing parts. After all, in the book of one’s life, what really counts is the story, not the pictures. Buy your toys while you can still afford the insurance to use them. Don’t use your motorcycle to hunt with.
On our collective memory:
Date your pictures. Write down who is in them and what year it was. Newboro Lake writer Charlotte Gray said in a speech recently that we should date and label all of our photographs. Also print off all of your important emails so that there is a hard copy and our memories won’t just disappear.
No Old Eights lunch would be complete without a yarn about another local writer, Orville Forrester. His son Jim offered this one: “The only time I’ve ever been around explosives was when Dad dropped a stick of dynamite into the spring above our cottage to blow it out. There was a big white explosion — a fountain of quartz crystals and water mixed together. Then in typical fashion he dug a trench through the North Shore Road, ran a little plastic hose down the hill to the cottage, and we had running water.”
On change:
Somebody at IBM once said, “We’ll only need about two of these things.” Learn to type if you haven’t already done so. Don’t resist technology. It will keep you connected to the world and allow you to communicate in a pervasive way. Older people do well with Google. It’s good for the mind to use search engines. It re-ignites one’s innate sense of curiosity and provides new ways to find interesting things.
The publishing industry is in trouble, not from the recession, but from the spread of digital media. Universities are cutting costs by eliminating textbooks, offering course materials online. Newspapers find themselves competing with their own online editions. Are journalists a dying breed? One of the biggest worries publishers have with digital media is that if someone censors something, a single copy can be deleted and it’s as if the item had never existed. Our memory is lost, replaced by whatever the Winston Smith of the day has decided we should remember in its place.
Stuff is one of the worst afflictions:
“You are probably wondering how we survived the Toronto garbage strike. The pyramids they built were very convenient. You’d just go with any number of bags and hand them to someone else and they would end up in one of these mountains of garbage. You could give them everything, as long as it was double bagged, no questions asked. We had put an old washing machine out for pickup just before the strike, though. It’s still there. They sprayed the pyramids of garbage to reduce the smell and the rodents. The first day of garbage pickup was a bit ripe. The trucks smelled horrible.”
“But the Portland dump is a lovely site. Robert Redford (a red Ford pickup) and I drove to the dump with the stuff left over from my Westport yard sale. It all had to go. The staff were very nice to me and even helped unload my junk.”
Then there was the time Jim and Stephanie had to get rid of an old, 1940’s house trailer abandoned on their property after use as a goat shed and chicken coop. Their neighbour was in charge of the operation in their absence, and he enlisted the help of a backhoe and a crane to lift the thing onto a flatbed trailer for disposal. The only suitable landing bed among the hills was the township road. As the crane swung the hulk onto the trailer, the slings pulled up through the rotten floor and out tumbled dozens upon dozens of large, shiny milk snakes. Bedlam ensued. Heavy machinery operators and farmers are as jumpy as anyone else when the road is alive with angry snakes.
Debt and the Canadian family
August 7, 2009
How to blow up a tree
August 2, 2009
The elm had been full of health when we built the house, but the blight took it and left a huge and rotting cadaver. I was afraid to cut it. As elms often do, three trunks had grown from a common stump, then together, and apart again. The disease had shorn the heavier limbs off it by the time I had worked up enough nerve to do something about it.
Over the previous years I had cut up and burned a number of large elms, so I wasn’t exactly a babe-in-the-woods when it came to felling large trees. Still, this one gave me the willies. Most trees lean, and can be tipped in that general direction with a large notch, some careful cutting, and a steel wedge. But I couldn’t tell where, if anywhere, this one wanted to fall.
A colleague, Pat Quinn, got wind of my problem. Pat is legendary for his explosive solutions to problems. “Rod, why don’t you just blow the thing up? I’ve got some dynamite the County let me have to clear beaver dams out of culverts, and it’s getting pretty old. I should use it up because it’s starting to sweat. Want me to come up on Saturday and take care of the tree?” I nodded, a little nervously. Like most of the rookies and all of the kids at Smiths Falls Collegiate, I was a bit scared of Pat. I told him I’d be ready for him on Saturday morning, though.
That afternoon I tried to cut the tree. Even with a huge notch and deep cuts all around, the tree would not tip.
Pat drove in Saturday morning. “I was a little nervous over some of the bumps on Hwy. 15 with that dynamite in the trunk. It’s sweating, and those drops on the outside of it are nitroglycerine. Be sure when you’re handling it you wear heavy gloves. Otherwise your heart will start to race like crazy from just a touch. It absorbs through the skin.”
I didn’t know if he was doing a number on me or not, so I tried to appear relaxed. Pat looked the tree over and decided to tie three sticks to the side of the trunk just to see what happened. He sent me to put in the electric cap fastened to the 200’ of wire. We would set it off by shorting the contacts across the poles of a 12v car battery.
Dutifully I carried the cap and the wire over to the tree where Pat had made a show of tying the dynamite on with his hands encased in heavy gloves. I looked back to ask him something. No Pat. That’s strange. I followed the yellow wires over a rise and found him lying behind a boulder with eyes shut and fingers in his ears.
“All right, Pat, quit foolin’ around! I’m going to hook them up now!” Feeling none too eager to bring cap to nitro, I nevertheless stuffed the cap into the end of one of the sticks. Then I did not run. I walked back to Pat’s boulder, but he made me find my own.
He fired the shot. It went “bang”. A bit of bark fell off the trunk, but that was it. A couple of Holsteins looked up, but soon lost interest.
Pat got serious. This time he jammed three sticks into a crevasse between two of the trunks and shot that. More bark flew, but the tree barely moved.
My turn. “Okay, this is what we’ll do. Over there on the other side of the house is a pile of clay. Bring over a pail-full of it while I cut a mortise into the trunk to hold the next shot.”
I fired up the saw and made a plunge cut straight into the back of the trunk. It went in all 30” of the bar’s length. I pulled it out and made three more cuts into the punky wood, until I had created a 4” mortise straight into the heart of the tree, just at the level where I had cut the wedge before. Then I hit it with the axe and wonder of all, the square plug of rotten elm popped right out.
Pat looked really apprehensive at this, but I pushed in three sticks of dynamite and a blasting cap. Then I used half a pail of clay to seal the hole.
The shot wasn’t particularly loud. It was more of a roar, but the hundred-foot tree seemed to lift slowly above the stump about four feet. Then it stopped and turned horizontal in mid-air before it did a spectacular belly flop into the neighbour’s quarry. It hit so hard most of the trunk broke up into chips.
When the dust had settled and the last few branches had found their way to earth, there really wasn’t anything to cut up and move, so Pat and I celebrated a job neatly done and he left with new respect for the power of dynamite sealed in a tree.
Rear brakes on your 2002 Tacoma feel tight?
July 29, 2009
It may be the emergency brake cable acting up.
First I’d better mention that I write a lot better than I wrench. This blurb, therefore, is for the very occasional shade-tree mechanic, not for the dedicated gear head who will probably find it ludicrously simple.
For example when I started the project I didn’t know which cap to take off to loosen the brake shoes. Honest. It’s not that simple. There are two black things at the bottom where they used to be on a Beetle. They don’t come off. Then there’s a little one up at the top. That’s the one, it turns out. I took the wheels off, thinking I might find an adjustment port in the plate under the wheel, like on my golf cart. No.
Deprived of an easy and obvious way to loosen the brake shoes, I selected the looser wheel and tried to take the drum off without easing the shoes back. I remembered my mechanic mentioning you can thread two bolts into special holes on Toyota drums to work as a sort of drum-puller. I tried two, 5/16” bolts. These worked, but one stripped before I had torn the drum free from the shoes.
Stymied, I went to the garage and returned with a 20 ounce framing hammer. I was going to do some pounding and see if that would help. With the help of the hammer, I was able to relocate the unadjusted brake shoes enough to slide the drum off over the top. Remember that this wheel was the one which was tight, but far from seized.
Once I got the drum off I realized the emergency brake cable lever and linkage looked kinda stiff, so I decided to whack it a bit. It took a fair amount of work to move it, and it is supposed to articulate freely, right? I found some lithium grease in a spray can in the cupboard, so I socked it to the various levers of this linkage until it had freed up. Then I nuked the area with brake cleaner so that I wouldn’t wreck the shoes.
Not having learned the lesson which should have been obvious at this point (that the emergency brake linkage is what is causing the brakes to bind, and the shoes can be freed up by forcing the lever back towards the drum) I tried to transfer what I had learned of brake anatomy on the right side to the left-hand drum. Just for the record, the adjusters are threaded right-hand on the right, and left-hand on the left. If you remember nothing else from this tale, retain that.
Then when you have a screwdriver poised to rotate the adjuster, you can puzzle out which way to turn it. I admit I guessed and got lucky. The way it wanted to turn (I can’t remember which) didn’t actually free up the shoes, but it did no harm, and before long I decided to try banging on the emergency brake lever with my hammer and that freed up the shoes.
It wasn’t quite according to plan, but it was obviously the correct thing to do, because the drum came right off once I had forced the lever back into place. Then all I had to do was lubricate the linkage and work the levers until it responded to the pull of the brake springs.
I remember watching my mechanic use coarse sandpaper on the drums and shoes to roughen them up before reassembly, so I did that and carefully put the drums and wheels back on.
Then I had to set up the back brake shoes, of course, because I had turned them way in to facilitate assembly. The emergency brake operates the adjuster plate inside the brake drum each time the cable is tightened, so I methodically put the parking brake on and released it many times until the brakes would hold on a moderate slope.
When I moved it the truck immediately felt lively and healthy after the repair. Before, it had felt cranky and rough, not pleasant to drive. I guess the stuck wheel put an awkward load on the suspension, and did its best to keep the vehicle from moving at every start and turn.
The job took a morning of leisurely work, but paid off in much better ride and performance from the truck, not to mention the dramatically increased life expectancy of the brakes.
So the lesson? Before you try to turn back the adjusters, get the slack out of the emergency brake lever. You may not need any more.
the Walnut Diary 