Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums Modifications Brakes changing front discs

just need some help. i have a 98.5 contour se and am changing the brakes. I have 65,000km roughly 40,000 miles. i have the front pads taken off and am trying to get the disc off. I have been hammering at it for a while and it doesn't seem to be moving. Am i missing a step? Do i have to do something else before i can get the disc off. any help is appreciated. thanks.

It's just stuck on there from rust prolly...keep hammering and it should come off after a while.

Agreed. They're probably just frozen on with rust. They should slip off over the studs after the caliper is removed.

Same problem I had. IIRC, a good soak with WD-40 and wacks on the top, bottom, and sides of the discs got them free. NO amount of banging the rear face did (and I hit them there a lot).

Hammering is not the answer as you will soon have to replace the wheel bearing too because it's also taking a beating. There is so little clearance between the hub and rotor that the rust build-up between the two bonds them together. The only way to get it off without damaging your wheel bearing is to hacksaw or grind it off to release it from its death grip on the hub. You will have to make cuts and then use a chisel in the cuts to break chunks off till it releases the hub. You may have to go as much as half way around before it lets go. I know because I had to do both of mine last summer and had to replace the bearing on the one that I beat on a few months later. Good luck. I hope this helps.
btw: replacing the wheel bearing is not an easy job.

Ray

ha ha, i was at midas yesterday to get my brakes turned, and they ended up puting on new rotors and aligning it (they said ford wants the discs to be 8.91 mm, and mine were at 8.4 , i guess becuase they had already been turned twice before...any who..only $160 job and it took 45 min). I was out there in the garage talking with the guy doing to work, and i watched a mechanic take a HUGE 3ft sledge hammer to the rear discs of an old cadillac. He seemed to just hit the face of the disc (you're going to replace them anyway so don't be affraid to mess em up) and eventually after 3-4 blows, clouds and heaps of brake dust and rust snowed off and the rotor slipped free...the cadillac drove flawlessly after that, and they give a 1 year warranty parts and labor, so he wouldn't of done that if he thought it would cuase potential harm to the car....i might be wrong...as i always seem to be, lol...take it for what its worth...

Don't forget to apply some anti-sieze to the mating surfaces between the hub and rotor when it goes back together so that it will be easier to remove next time.

Yep, that's the way they showed me how to do it at BMW also. I never met a rotor that resisted hammering to the face. The tough ones you'd have to hit from the back face. I always put a lug back on the hub after removing the wheel to prevent the rotor from flying into unwanted places.

I did mine a month or so ago. Since it was the first time I'd ever done anything on a car, I was alittle wary about hitting my car w/ a sledge. So I tried a rubber mallet first. After about 15 minutes w/o any sign of the rotor moving, I just said "scr*w it" and took out a 3lb hand sledge.

Give a good firm tap on the back of the rotor, rotate the rotor about 45degrees, and continue. You should see the rotor slowly coming off. Mine didn't come off all at once, maybe ~5min. I took my time bc of the limited clearance back there.

thanks for the tips. after hitting them for about 5-10min they finally came off.