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Rotor Removal Question

9

98 Contour

CEG'er
Joined
Dec 27, 2006
Messages
417
Location
Bangor, PA
Hi all,

I'm doing the brakes on my wife's Contour this weekend, and have a question. The last time this car needed brakes, the rotors were frozen to the hubs so bad I had to take the car to a garage. I checked the rotors last week, and they are indeed frozen again. Now I saw a thread in this forum where they used a three-jaw puller to get a stuck rotor off. What size puller would I need to do this? Also, what can I do to keep the new rotors from freezing to the hub?

Thanks for any and all help.

-Chris
 
Its the corrosion that sticks the rotor to the hub, mostly at the hub center. Use a penetrant, like PB blaster, and soak all the interfaces, around the hub center, at the stud holes, and get the backside if you can. Then soak it again awhile later. Some heat from a propane torch will help too, but don't go overboard or you'll screw up the grease in the bearing. Use a hammer to knock the rotor loose. I've seen some really stuck rotors here in MI from the winter salt, but I've never seen one that couldn't be removed with the above method. You really shouldn't HAVE to use a puller.

All that said, when putting new rotors on, clean up as much rust off the hub face as you can, wire brush, and PB blaster, etc. Then put some nickel antisieze on the face of the hub, and around the outside of the raised hub center. Don't forget that anti-sieze will stick to everything, and won't come out of fabric usually, so be careful where you put it. The anti-sieze will help prevent corrosion from forming so next time the rotor will be much easier to remove.
 
On my mazdas there are two threaded holes used to "pop" the rotor off when you screw a bolt into them. These rotors dont have those?
 
Pullers are not needed.

A nice Rubber Mallet will do the job JUST FINE!

PB Blaster definetaly helps as well. I just hit the sucker with a long mallet for leverage and such. Kept hitting it all over including from under the car inside of the rotor and eventually, it just came out!

Good luck i know rust weld can be a *******!

Just make sure to clean up the HUB really well. I even went ahead and put some grease on the contact points so it doesnt happen again!

- amyn
 
qbcsvt said:
Pullers are not needed.

A nice Rubber Mallet will do the job JUST FINE!

PB Blaster definetaly helps as well. I just hit the sucker with a long mallet for leverage and such. Kept hitting it all over including from under the car inside of the rotor and eventually, it just came out!

Good luck i know rust weld can be a *******!

Just make sure to clean up the HUB really well. I even went ahead and put some grease on the contact points so it doesnt happen again!

- amyn
Click to expand...

Did you even read my post above?
 
Grease doesn't work nearly as well as anti-seize. Personally, I don't think nickel anti-seize is necessary, just regular anti-seize. The main benefit of nickel is very high temperatures, such as on exhaust bolts.

If you use anti-seize, it is not likely to stick again, or at least if it does, it should be very light and come loose very easy.

One of the reasons for cleaning the rust thoroughly is that any rust that forms or is left behind may eventually contribute to uneven braking, similar to warped rotors or rotor thickness variation. Another is that the anti-seize will work better.
 
Big Jim said:
Grease doesn't work nearly as well as anti-seize. Personally, I don't think nickel anti-seize is necessary, just regular anti-seize. The main benefit of nickel is very high temperatures, such as on exhaust bolts.
Click to expand...

Hmm, the two types of anit-sieze that I'm familiar with using are either nickel (the gray-silver stuff) or copper based (copper colored . . .) and the copper is usually used for the more high temp stuff, such as exhaust bolts, or oxygen sensors.
 
Permatex makes two silver colored ones. One of them is more expensive and contains nickel with the note that it is intended for high temp uses. The nickel one is what Ford specified for exhaust manifold bolt use back when they had a huge problem with warped exhaust manifolds on 460 engines in trucks and motor homes.

I have a bottle of the cheaper one that i use for most things, including brake rotor to hub surfaces.

By the way, Ford advocated the use of the cheaper silver anti-seize between the hub and rotor as part of the cure for brake noise on 89 to 97 Thunderbirds, so it might have that benefit as well.
 
If you need to, you can grind a little off the hub with a dremel. My passenger side rotor took 4-5 hours of soaking with PB and whacking with a hammer. Nice coating of anti-seize should prevent it. Just remember to reapply it every so often. Driver's side slid right off.
 
Last edited:
Thanks for all the suggestions everyone. Rotors have been soaking in PB blaster about 12 hours now, still stuck.:mad:

If they're still froze when I get home from work tonight, I' m going to have to get a puller or something else to get this done. Anyone know what size puller I would need?

Rara said:
Its the corrosion that sticks the rotor to the hub, mostly at the hub center. Use a penetrant, like PB blaster, and soak all the interfaces, around the hub center, at the stud holes, and get the backside if you can. Then soak it again awhile later. Some heat from a propane torch will help too, but don't go overboard or you'll screw up the grease in the bearing. Use a hammer to knock the rotor loose. I've seen some really stuck rotors here in MI from the winter salt, but I've never seen one that couldn't be removed with the above method. You really shouldn't HAVE to use a puller.

All that said, when putting new rotors on, clean up as much rust off the hub face as you can, wire brush, and PB blaster, etc. Then put some nickel antisieze on the face of the hub, and around the outside of the raised hub center. Don't forget that anti-sieze will stick to everything, and won't come out of fabric usually, so be careful where you put it. The anti-sieze will help prevent corrosion from forming so next time the rotor will be much easier to remove.
Click to expand...

I'm definitely putting anti-sieze on there. Thanks for the advice.
 
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