time for new rotors

[racsan]

well the originals have lasted since new in '93 but it appears its time for new, found this major crack in the l.f. rotor when putting on my new lockout hubs. going to drill holes in the new ones to fasten the hubs to the rotors with screws. i was wondering why i was getting a pulsating pedal under heavy braking, guess i know now. ive not seen one do this before. its a little hard to see in the photo, crack is at about the 11 o'clock postion. at least new ones werent too bad, about $30 per rotor. napa had some high-performance rotors for $130 a piece, looked like racing rotors with the grooves and cooling holes. if the truck were newer i might have considered it, but im not convinced it would be much of a upgrade for the $ id be spending. now for warmer weather so i can do the job. im also going to take the spindles off and inspect the spindle bearings and axleshaft U-joints. but not at 30 degrees. heres a pic:

 

[turtle3.0]

WOW! 17 y/o rotors. How many times have you had them turned? My truck is only a 02 with 72,000 miles on it and I've replaced the rotors once already, passenger side caliber once, and pads twice.

Some people have installed the fancy slotted / crossdrilled rotors with upgraded pads and have reported pretty nice decreases in braking distance and better feel. I don't blame you about not wanting to spend 130 a piece for the sport rotors. If you can stumble across a set of rotors and pads on Ebay of something is one thing. Paying retail is another.

 

[racsan]

never been turned, i always changed pads before they started eating into the rotors, figured the new pads would seat into what grooves were already there. and each time you get a rotor turned, you are removing metal, making the rotor more prone to warping due to losing material thickness. theyve done quite well all in all.

 

[turtle3.0]

I still think that's impressive. Because of the sticking caliber, I had a severly warped rotor which is why I had to replace the rotors so I probably could have still had the factory rotors on my truck. Drums on the other hand . . . just spend 3+ hours replacing the shoes, drums, and springs. Took 1.5+ hours to get the old drums off.

 

[racsan]

when i first did my drums a few years back i had to break them apart with a hammer, the drum was froze with rust to the axle flange. i now anti-seize that spot and havent had any rust-welding issues there since.

 

[racsan]

here is the r.f. rotor, its worse than the left one. weird though just 1 crack in each rotor? this weekend i plan to change them out.

 

[racsan]

got it done yesterday, also pulled my spindles so i could check on the bearing inside the spindle and pull/check the axleshafts and u-joints. did have a bad wheel bearing, left side inner, looked like the metal was delamanating on the rollers, it had been replaced with the other 4 a fews back and only had about 30K on it. dont know why it happened. everything else was in good shape. its nice to not have the jerking and pulsateing pedal now when stopping. going to get some areostar drums for the rear when i have the cash, just couldnt do it this week. i used a synthetic grease and the hubs are now secures to the rotors with screws instead of the push clips. hopefully i wont be taking this apart for quite ahile. i had used anti-seize on the spindles when i did the ball joints 5 years ago and i highly recomend it. that first time i thought i was going to brake something the way i had to beat on it to get it to seperate from the knuckle. this time it came apart alot easier, just a smack to the left and right and it pulled right off. my splash guards are about gone, i carefully wire-wheeled them and painted them with some rustolem, along with the axleshafts. ive seen some trucks without splashguards, im not sure why you would do that unless you were just wanting the inside of the rotor to be visable from under the front of the truck.