New Here 99 SL-1
 

I'm new here and the fairly happy owner of a '99 SL-1. It was the replacement for my wife's Mazda Protege which was a real money pit. Currently my issue is with a grinding noise when I brake. I am guessing just brake wear, so I'm hoping to get it up on stands and have a look. The other issue which is jury rigged around was the read door skins. The one side started to come off. When I looked the part at the front of the door in the jam seems to have cracked and so is no longer connected. The same thing is the case on the other side. I snapped it in at the window again and took some duct tape to hold in where it seems to be broken. It is too cold here to work on that right now, so it will have to wait until summer.

As for the brakes, I have done them on the Mazda and my GMC Safari van, so I am guessing things are pretty much the same on the SL-1. The only issue I have is jacking it up is a pain as there does not seem to be anywhere at the front to place my floor jack so I end up jacking up one side, then the other. Any suggestions before I go at it (likely tomorrow) would be appreciated.

EDIT:

Just went to jack it up. Man this is my big frustration with it. If I use my floor jack the platform is too big for the rocker panel jack point and so it damages the trim. My bottle jack will just fit under, but jacked to the maximum height it leave the place where I need to put the stands about a 1/8 to a 1/4 inch too low to fit even my smallest stands. Not a very jack friendly design unless you have an actual hoist.

Brakes are done, but of course I found other things that need doing. The boot on the driver's side tie rod is badly damaged, so I will be under there again. Hopefully the tie rod is still good, but I won't know that until I get to it. I also now here a rubbing noise I didn't before.

You just did your brakes and now you hear a sound you didn't hear before...check your work. Sometimes one needs a smaller floor jack.

The brakes were grinding pretty loud before I did them which was no surprise as the pads were down to almost nothing. I'm surprised the brakes worked at all. I will go over it again as I have to at least replace the boot on the one tie rod end. Not today though, and the forecast is rain and snow for the next 3-4 days. Maybe I can get enough stuff out of the way in the garage to put it up. When I checked the work over after finishing it all looked good, and the braking on the test drive was exceptional.

Checked stuff. As I said, my work it fine, however, it was an easy fix, the wire I had used to hang the calliper was still on the strut spring. Now I am running quite again and only have the tie rod boot to worry about.

Always a good idea to check the last thing done ... work done right item left behind. Kinda like the surgeon leaving a sponge inside the wound and then sews it closed. Well not as painfull.

And a whole lot more noticeable. Looking at the tie rod end it looks tight, but I will need to replace the boot for it to stay that way. Now to find someone local who sells a replacement boot.

The replacement tie-rod ends aren't very expensive. I replaced the ones on mine a few months ago and they came with grease fittings! I got them at Advance Auto Parts and think they were about twelve bucks apiece. Takes about fifteen minutes to swap one out. You'll just need to have your alignment checked afterward if you replace the whole thing.

I know tie rod ends are easy enough to do, but I really don't feel like paying for an alignment if I don't have to. The job itself is pretty straight forward. I have rebuilt the entire front end of my GMC Safari van so this doesn't look bad.