The Toyota basket case

A local farmer asked me if I could have a look at his brakes because they were loosing fluid. I knew it was going to be 'special' when he brought the car down on his forklift!
The car is the rattiest Toyota Hi Lux pickup in the county, it stunk of ‘animal waste’ and when I asked about it I was told that the brakes failed in a field so he stopped by crashing into the ‘waste’ pile!
Pulling a wheel off, I was greeted by large clods of dung hitting the floor an a swarm of earwigs scattering like ripples on a pond. Nice.

But nothing prepared me for the sight that greeted me next. I have never seen anything so extreme as this before, the brake pads have been completely worn off and the backing metal had been worn down too, but the most remarkable part is the brake discs which were worn to a sharp edge, the main body of the disc was rough and its thickness varied between 1.2mm and a barely believable 0.8mm! One disc had started to split along one of the many grooves. The fluid leak was due to the calliper pistons falling out! Look at the pictures to the right, I have prized the pads appart a litle, and that's the brake disc between them, ruler held in position to show scale!

But it is amazing that the discs had worn so evenly, equally on both sides of each disc, and the same on both sides of the car. Very impressive.
Anyway, after stripping down the freewheeling hubs and refurbishing the callipers, I fitted a set of 'internet special' discs and pads, so that should do for the rest of the vehicles life!