Reflection week 4
This week for internship I had to work on change breaks and disc. This is what they taught me and told me that if you do not know how to check or change your cars brakes, you will waste a lot of money and put your life in danger. Most people do not know how to check or change their brakes; it is fairly basic and not expensive if you can do it yourself. All new cars have disc brakes, so this essay will only detail instructions on them. First inspect your brakes to see if they need to be changed and if they do to what extent. Maybe you just need to replace the pads, or you need to replace the rotors and the calipers. Jack up the car. Use a hydraulic floor jack and jack stands so that you don't have to jack each side up separately only. Find a place on the frame to start jacking the car. This could be done from either the front or back, depending on which brakes are being done. Place the jack stands under the frame. Once the stands are in place, release the pressure on the floor jack. Once the car is jacked up you can remove the lug nuts and take the tires off. The calipers are the pieces that actually move when the brakes are applied, they push the pads on the rotors to stop the car. The pads can be easily viewed. If they are worn a significant amount, they should be changed. Generally, the brake pads will start. Once it is determined what need to be replaced, removal of the old parts can begin. There are several reasons why it is a good to be able to change your own brakes, or at least be able to check them to make sure they will not fail or cost you much more money down the line. The bearings then should be removed from the old rotors, re-greased and placed in the new rotors. Keep something under the tube to drain the fluid into, and once the air bubbles stop you can close the valve and put the tire back on and the job is finished. Once the caliper is attached you must bled the line, so that there is not any air in it. You should then just check the pressure by pumping the brakes, make sure the brake fluid is full , then start out going slow and checking the brakes and if it works, the job was finished successfully. Generally they do not need replacement much, as long as the pads are changed when they need to be the rotors will last a while. Now if the rotors must be replaced, do the same steps as above, but do not put the new pads on yet. After, all that is needed to be done, is the car has to be jacked up again, the stands removed and the jack dropped down. Once they are removed the caliper should slide right off of the rotor. They attach the line to the new caliper and re-attach the caliper. The rotor then should be able to slide off, it may be a little tight and needed to be hit with a mallet or hammer a little to loosen it up. Then the pads can be replaced and the calipers reinstalled.