My Experience with Fixing a Toyota Carolla

In this article, I will be explaining about my experience with fixing up a Toyota Corolla. I know that some of the things that I will be talking about, many people may not be able to comprehend fully, but please bear with me.
I have found, in my recent weeks, that the 89 Toyota Corolla is quite possibly one of the hardest cars to work on if you have no prior mechanics schooling. Much like most other cars, the Corolla has a lot of different parts that are small and very fragile, such as the Wheel studs, for instance. I recently replaced the brake pads on my bosses Toyota Corolla and neglected to put the proper application of lubricant on the caliper. In doing so, it made his brakes squeak pretty loudly when coming to a halt. Thus, I had to take it apart and put the proper application of lubricant on the caliper. Sounds easy right? Wrong. When I removed the hubcap from the tire, my next step was to remove the lug-nuts. Every single one came off except for one. When I used the lug wrench to loosen it, it in fact became tighter. I turned and turned, until finally, it wouldn't turn any longer. I rested for a second, and then gave it one more good hard turn. I had to apply so much pressure to turn it, that in doing so, I snapped the wheel stud right in half. Yea, not fun. Luckily for me, the wheel studs were not too pricey, but the new lug-nuts that I now needed could have done with a price gouge.

After obtaining the parts I needed to fix everything, there was the problem of getting the Hub off. After spending the last $50 I had in order to rent the tools I needed to get the bolt holding the Hub off, I found myself without a Hub puller. I pulled and yanked on the damn thing until I was blue in the face. After about five hours of pulling and pulling, my arms were tired, but I had finally got the Hub to come off. I had to hammer out all the old studs, and then hammer in all the new ones, which was not easy what so ever. That alone to me two hours just to get them in right. Then, after getting the Hub fixed and applying the proper amount of lubricant to the caliper, I decided that it was time to put it all back together and test it out. Putting it all back together was probably the easiest of it all, it all went back into place and fit ever so nicely.

After putting it all back together, I took it for a test drive. Everything was going smoothly until I sped up and began hearing the most awful grinding noise I had ever heard. I turned around and parked it so I could take it all apart again to discover the problem. By this time, my boss was supposed to have been off work already and was waiting for me to finish. I figured that after pulling the Hub off, that I may have unaligned the bearings some how and spent another three hours trying to get the Hub off again. My boss was pretty angry, but he ended up finding another way home and to work for that night and the next day. By about 9pm, I noticed that the dust plate had been bent from all the pulling i had done from the time before. I then put the Hub and rotor and brake system back on, and focused on adjusting the dust plate back to its original position. When I did, I put everything back into place and took it for another test drive, only to find that it now worked perfectly and without any grinding noise. It was grinding that whole time simply because of the dust plate, I felt like an idiot needless to say. I called my boss at his house and told him the good news. He was relieved to know that everything was ok with it now, and despite the length of time that it took me(which was roughly about 12-14 hours), he even thanked me. Even though he was angry for it taking me so long, he never lost faith in my ability to fix it, and I thank him for giving me the chance.

People lose faith in things everyday. The work I did, I did for free, because I am not a licensed mechanic, and I am always on the lookout to help those in need. This was my first time working on a car that thoroughly, and I have a lot of bumps and bruises from it. But you know what, hearing that "thank you" and "nice job", and the fact that he never lost faith in me, made it all worth it. It's good to know that while not everyone I know can have faith in me, there are some out there who reach out for help that can.