binfordm715 : Yikes! What happened to my brakes?!
Yikes! What happened to my brakes?!
Post by binfordm715 on Aug 7, 2006, 12:18am
Took the M715 for a spin up our dirt road today. There are a few small hills from a housing development that is in the early stages, so while the boys were catching frogs in the marshy rainwater catch basin nearby, my neighbor and I went up and down the hills. One was pretty steep, but not all that high.
As I motored up, I realized I was in 3rd (low range), so I stopped and shifted to 1st. I heard what I thought was the back bumper and/or my tail lights dragging in the dirt behind. As I let off the brake to go in 1st, it rolled back a bit and I heard a strange noise from the rear. I pushed in the clutch again and hit the brake and WHAM!!! Right to the floor! The truck rolled all the way down the hill and I stopped with the e-brake (the rear tires were just starting up, so it wasn't far).
What had happened was the channel that supports the spare tire came off the bolt at the back. There's no spare tire on it and the bolt was loose. Well, it dropped to the ground and that was the scraping I heard. When the truck rolled back a foot or two, the end of it dug into the dirt and bent the other end up and scraped against the rear axle, snagging the brake line on the way, tearing it in two!
We drove home, slowly. Weird not having any brakes! It sure did impress upon me the danger of having a single hydraulic brake system though!
So make sure that bolt is good and tight, guys!
I guess I'll just get enough brake line to replace that whole section. I'll have to crawl under and look at it more carefully later to see.
