HELP! Rotors welded to hubs!

M Darrah

Registered
I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but these damned front rotors seem to be welded to the hubs. We've been pounding in them all afternoon and they refuse to budge. At this point there pretty well trashed, so unless I can get them off, I'm out of a car.

Does the center "cap" or whatever it's called have to come off too?

I'm at a total loss and pissed like a mother******. I should never have attempted this.
 
RE: HELP! Rotors welded to hubs!

If anyone wants to call and walk us through this, it'd be appreciated. PM me and either give me your number and we'll call you, or PM me and I'll give you my phone number.

Thanks.
 
RE: HELP! Rotors welded to hubs!

Did you remove the clips around the lug nut studs? There are usually 2 on each rotor to hold the rotors on during assembly at the factory. If your brakes haven't ever been worked on or are veryt rusty they can be hard to see.

Don't ask me how I know this. :p :p

Mike Donley
1994 Mark VIII
Champagne/Saddle
http://www.mustangmods.com/data/1487/94mkviii.jpg
 
RE: HELP! Rotors welded to hubs!

Disc
Removal

Remove the front disc brake caliper anchor plate (2B292) ; refer to Anchor Plate in this section.
Remove rotor retaining pushnuts.

Locate the yellow-marked lug bolt and mark the corresponding disc brake rotor lug hole. This ensures the lowest front disc brake rotor runout is maintained.
Remove the front disc brake rotor (1125).



http://www.lincolnsclub.org/forum/user_files/747.gif
 
RE: HELP! Rotors welded to hubs!

Yes, this is the original set of rotors, but I didn't see any pushnuts, and we cleaned off most of the rust and gunk. I suppose they could have been there and I missed them. Most likely I did, because we beat them to a pulp and they wouldn't budge. I never even got to the rears at all.

Unfortunately it's too late to look now. We put everything back together and I'm gonna take it to a shop tomorrow morning. Man, those rotors were beat to hell after all the pounding we gave them. Let's just say brake performance has declined in a big way.

I don't have any time this week to work on them and I'm going to St. Louis next weekend, so the shop is my only choice. I can't drive it like this more than a few blocks and feel safe.

I didn't mention before that even the wheels were a PITA to get off. All the corrosion in the center hole had them locked to the rotors like glue.

Why can't anything I do on this car be easy? xo

Anyway, thanks for the help.
 
RE: HELP! Rotors welded to hubs!



The rotors are rusted to the hub. They are not attached by any fastners. To get them off, spray PBblaster around the studs. This will slowly leak behind the rotor and breakdown the rust seal. Spin the wheel between spraying to get better penetration. Spraying around the studs is the only way to get at the rust. Respray as necessary and let soak for maybe an hour tops. Also, hitting the rotor with a mallet between the studs will help breakdown the rust seal. I live in the midwest and deal with road salt effects on all my vehicles.

Just recently, I changed the original rear rotors on a 93 Mark this way, also hit the edge of the rotor with a rubber mallet for good measure. Got them off after waiting about 15 minutes for soaking. You can do this, just follow the process.
 
RE: HELP! Rotors welded to hubs!

Tried PB Blaster, no luck. A rubber mallet? Heck, we were hitting it with a 10 pound sledge towards the end!
 
RE: HELP! Rotors welded to hubs!



If you were hitting the outer edge of the rotor (after soaking around the studs) and it did not come off, this may qualify for Ripley's.
 
RE: HELP! Rotors welded to hubs!

I used a heavy duty gear puller.

I'm not sure how much they cost (it was my dad's), but it got off my welded rotor. Made an interesting sound when it finally popped off. You have to remove the hub cap to use it.
 
RE: HELP! Rotors welded to hubs!

...mine needed about 15-20 minutes with the air hammer after soaking with PBlaster...those bastards did not want to come off! good news is thats about the only hard part about this brake job and the end result is worth doing it yourself...
 
RE: HELP! Rotors welded to hubs!

You do know, Mark, that when you drop it off at the brake shop the rotors are just going to slide right off for the tech, right? }(

too bad you're out of time. i guess they can be a pain in the ass sometimes, but i've never had one that was that stuck. hopefully they don't hit you too hard at the shop.
 
RE: HELP! Rotors welded to hubs!

[div class="dcquote"][strong]Quote[/strong]
You do know, Mark, that when you drop it off at the brake shop the rotors are just going to slide right off for the tech, right? }( too bad you're out of time. i guess they can be a pain in the ass sometimes, but i've never had one that was that stuck. hopefully they don't hit you too hard at the shop.
[/div]

Of course they'll fall right off! That's how it always works for me.

The punchline to this whole story is that when I took it to the shop this morning, they found that the rotors I had bought were the wrong size! Too small. Probably for the rears. So even if I'd gotten the old ones off, it wouldn't have done me any good. Jeesh.

Labor is going to come out to around $125 just to do the fronts, and $100 to bleed the system. Plus I'll have to pay for the correct set of rotors, whatever that comes out to be.
 
RE: HELP! Rotors welded to hubs!

Mark I feel your pain.

I went through the same exact thing when I had my mark. The fornt rotors wouldn't come off at all. I started the job at 8am and by 7pm the rotors still wouldn't come off. I beat them so hard my arms hurt, but they still wouldn't move. I ended up taking it to a local shop and they did them there. Tech said it took a few trys, but the rotors finally came off.
 
RE: HELP! Rotors welded to hubs!

I had this problem with my truck. I soaked the connection points with PB blaster and beat on them gently. I wanted to get the originals resurfaced and resuse them. They were not warped. After a while, I gave up and beat the heck out of them with a large ball peen hammer. I got them off, but could not reuse them due to the damage I caused to them with the hammer.

Then, I really screwed up. I bought rotors from Advance Auto and they warped within 10k miles. They didn't bother to tell me that they had el cheapo china specials and could also order more expensive Bendix rotors. The originals lasted 80k without warping.

last Friday, I bought "premium" rotors from NAPA (made in USA on the boxes) for $76 each. I plan to install them soon.

Roadie
95 Champagne Mark VIII
00 Ford F150 Supercab 4x4
86 Chevy Monte Carlo SS
 
I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but these damned front rotors seem to be welded to the hubs. We've been pounding in them all afternoon and they refuse to budge. At this point there pretty well trashed, so unless I can get them off, I'm out of a car.

Does the center "cap" or whatever it's called have to come off too?

I'm at a total loss and pissed like a mother******. I should never have attempted this.
I had the same problem. My garage gave me my car back and said they couldn't get one of my rotors off but said for $800 they would get off. I told them forget it and found a YouTube video
where a guy said you could get it off with a 6" gear puller from Amazon. I bought the 8" from Amazon. I had to really crank it down using an air impact wrench but it finally worked. Major relief.
Here's the link if you can post this here:
 
Well done indeed. I've had to really fight with a couple of these in the past as well.

It'd be fun to see Mark around here again, word on the street is that he still has the car..
 
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