Re: Brake flushing adventures

[Alex Kowalski <akowalsk@shrike.depaul.edu>]

>Double !^$&*! I'm at the
> end of the jack's travel, car still isn't heigh enough to get the wheel
> back on and I can *hear* the jack sinking further into the ground....
> 
> Our hasty solution was to grab the jack from Karen's VW (the family
> ties are a life saver here) and try to get enough height to
> get the wheel on. It took a couple of iterations of jacking and
> moving the "free" jack towards the rear of the car to get it up
> heigh enough long enough to get the wheel on...
> 
> Needless to say, I moved the car before tackling the LF...
> 
> Otherwise, the job was a success! The pedal is nice and hard,
> better than before I started!
> 
> -Chris (in dire need of some proper tools and facilities)

Audis generally weigh less than Corvettes, especially in the front ends. 
I have used VW jacks in similar circumstances on my Audi (the last time 
my dad's driveway was surfaced properly was when the house was built). 
But body-on-frame cars really have no place safe to anchor them, and 
there is nothing more sickening than seeing a newly rebuilt, 
hand-polished and painted, non-bump-stoppered, '68 Corvette front end 
slowly sinking into the asphalt, with the rarer-than-rare rebuilt racing 
dual-pin, 4-pot front calipers and rotors about to take the Brunt.  
Luckily, my friends Chris and Dave (6'6, 250 and 6'5, 230) were there to 
grab the front end of the Hideous Possibility by the bumper ass-backward, 
(on an older 'Vette the glitzy chrome bumpers are bolted to the frame and 
protect the fiberglass very well indeed if an old lady in an '89 Riviera 
forgets to go forward and introduces herself to you at an ATM) and hoist 
that 'mutha with thoroughbred American Linebacker strength until I could 
get concrete blocks underneath everything. We quit for the day after 
that, and Dave & Chris later blasted around in the car, 
breaking in said brakes (and clutch), for saving my front end. Moral to 
the story: when saving money on soft ground, it's always best to have big 
buddies, or a truly reliable floor jack based on some strong plywood.  I 
keep a piece in the trunk of my Quattro in case I get stuck somewhere 
infirm.

Alex Kowalski
'84 4KQ  (fun, safe, happy when most cars are at their worst)
'68 327 Corvette Roadster 4-sp. (heavy, does nice pirouttes in rain, big 
fun when dry).