close call....

[The.Real.Redline]

Well for the past 4-5 days i have been hearing this clunking sound in my front left drivers side when i hit bumps and pot holes... I naturally thoght it was just my A-frame bar that was loose and knocking around a bit. Ive been busy and just drove with the sound... bad idea when it came around to the day i was going to take a look at it things got wayyy worse. I got under the car and tightend the A-frame...which wasnt really that loose. Put it back on the ground and took it down the road for a spin. the sound wasss much much worse. I was scared to say the least becasue i had nooo idea what it was. While i was reversing to turn around in a drive way (wheels fully cut) CLUNK! metal against metal and the car stopped dead. My face turned white as i got out of the car and gave everything a look... everthing seemed , ok? I got back in drove foward and herd a scrapping sound put it back in the drive way and quickly got her up in the air with the front wheels off. When i took the drivers wheel off there was a deep gash into the inner lip of the rim...my heart dropped. but nothing really looked wrong, i looke for fresh metal that coulda scrapped the rim... couldnt see anything. I was lost! What could have done this?!
Well after ten minutes of poking around i finally notice somthing, my caliper was sitting funny... One of the bolts holding the arm that holds the pads is missing and the other is dangerously close to falling off!!!!! I sat back and tried to comprehend how this could have happend, then it hit me. Less than a month ago i installed my new rotors and pads and ofcourse to install them you have to take those bolts out. Now before anyone starts calling me a newb and all that when i installed my brakes i know for a fact they were torqued down properly becuase i couldnt not remove those bolts by hand and had my local chevy dealership remove them as i put my front rotors on and then they torqued them down. I took it for a test drive braked hard a few times took it back and tightend it some more. However the day after i went auto-x'ing and put a beating on the new brakes, thats the only way i can think of that coulda have gotten them to loosen up at all becasue i havent touched them at all since then... so i assume that a with the beating and the worst roads in north america it just shook the bolt loose but...i dont know for sure i only have a theroy. i dont wanna think that the dealership jypted me becaseu i was there watching them do it... But yeah hard leason learned.
Long story short, i was amazingly able to find the bolt that fell out on the road i was driving on. got everything put back togethere and checked all the otehr calipers as well. Everyhting sounds good now and everything is tight.
Always check weird noises, always make sure things are doone right and take ur time with things.

[silverredline]

wow man, that sucks, but at least you found out what it was before something really major happened, like on the hghwy or something!!

[Redline485]

Im glad you got it taken care of and nothing serious happened. It could have been bad if you went to stop and nothing happend. Im gonna inspect my car out this weekend.

[The.Real.Redline]

Yeah like im very happy/lucky that was all that happend.