. this one caught me by suprise. over the last year or so i had convinced myself that the god awful clunk coming out of my van at the first stop sign every morning was probably motor mounts. this was reinforced by a local garage last year est 600$ . i opted to "wait till it got worse". so this year i had to get the exhaust checked at a local muffler shop. they asked if i had any other issues. i told them about the noise on braking after being parked for a while . they found out the parking brake was not disengaging ,the lower part of the shoes would stay on the back drums till i would hit the pedal at that stop sign, or any first stop after parking.....thus the loud clunk.
of course they took me to the cleaners for the repair, turned the drums, new shoes, new adjust mechanism new brake hardware kit 500$ ...but it wasn't my motor mounts after all !!!, the god awful clunk is gone. go figure.
live a little, learn a lot, hope this helps someone, that repair was well within my meager skills all the time if i had looked harder instead of agreeing on the worst case senario. rick

 

Don't be so hard on yourself. Anyone who has spent much wrench time on their vehicle has suffered the same ignominy of misdiagnosis - I know I have. The one thing I have learned from spending time on these forums is that the human brain, for whatever reason, tends to turn simple problems into complex ones. Time and again, we tend to overlook simple causes in favor of more complex solutions.

Over the years I have learned to use what I call the Idiot Method of car repair. If I cannot figure out the problem, I go get my wife. She is, lovingly said, a complete idiot when it comes to car repair. Her value is to ask questions that cause me to think in different directions than what I had been fixated on. Invariably new solutions occur to me - some of which actually work.

 

Yea I had a old Ford 100 van that made the loudest damn sound you ever heard. It sounded like it was up front and I checked every bolt pully nut and could not find it. Then I changed my rear engine seal so I pulled the Tranny back to get at it and the damn Flywheel was lose.

 

Aerocolorado
Good point!! That is why this forum exists so that we amateurs can pool
or experience and hopefully save time and a few $$$$. It is no wonder we
don't get it right the first time when even the profesional mechanics can't
get it right the first time! I've made plenty of mistakes, but I've also had
a few times when I have bettered the shops around town. I'm not afraid
to post a mistake I have made on this forum esp. if I think it will save
somebody from making the same mistake.

 

The beauty of this site is the spreading of knowledge. If we do something that turns out right, we post it up. If we do something silly,( not stupid we post it up also.
I have learned more about my Astar in the year and a half I have been coming here, than I did in the 9.5 years prior! The amount of answers given to a simple question can be overwhelming at times. But I guarantee you that some else out there has been through the same problem, and has a fix!
I will never leave FTE, it is as good as talking to the local Ford Mechanic! Most times it's better!!!!!

-reever

 

Aerocolorodo sure has it right about simple, common sense solutions. Now if we could only apply these principles to problems within society....

 

Aerocolorado Rules!!!