Cascade Crew

Al Hasse · Posted: Sat Aug 11, 2007 9:35 am Post subject: A liitle brake work...

Since I've been having an intermittent vibration under heavy braking, I decided to pull the rotors off the front and have a look. Vibration is not always present, but when it is, it's under heavy braking. Spindles and bearings look fine, but I'm going to replace the bearings anyway. I also have plenty of brake material left on the pads. All I could think of is that I may have a slightly warped rotor, so they went off to be machined. One other thing that concerned me a little was that the driver side bearing was a bit looser than the passenger side, I was able to undo the nut with very little effort using a needle-nose plier. I had to use a crescent wrench to undo the passenger side. Hopefully this bit of preventive maintenance will smooth out the brakes.

Sellmanb · Member Joined: 30 Nov 2004 Posts: 727 Location: Tigard, OR

if you have rear drum brakes on that vehicle then now would be a good time to clean and adjust them.

iansane · Posted: Sun Aug 12, 2007 6:52 pm Post subject:

If your rotors are warped it doesn't do any good to resurface them and not replace pads. The pads will be cockeyed and wear unevenly on the fresh rotors.

Al Hasse · Posted: Sun Aug 12, 2007 7:24 pm Post subject:

Thanks, but I actually think it was a wheel bearing. One was quite a bit looser than the other. Both rotors have been turned and both sets of bearings replaced - so far no more vibration when hard on the brake pedal.

Twilightoptics · Posted: Sun Aug 12, 2007 10:45 pm Post subject:

If you resurface you should do pads anyways to make sure they wear in properly or you'll wear out one or the other faster.

If you look at the specs for wheel bearings in our books... it's almost kinda vauge on how tight they should be.

Test the slop in the rotor assembly itself before pulling off the castle nut, will tell you how warn/loose things are. If it's too tight it wears, if it's loose it wears, etc.

I like to be able to turn my rotors freely, but have them not continue to spin "much" after I turn them.

Just my .02

Sellmanb · Member Joined: 30 Nov 2004 Posts: 727 Location: Tigard, OR

There's 2 methods that are "approved" for wheel bearing tightening. 1: If given a torque spec in a service manual, you will tighten the nut till it's "snug". Then back the nut off, and retorque it to the spec.

The 2nd method (one I like to use, but it far more time consuming), grab a dial indicator and tighten the nut until whatever manufacturer's specs are for wheel bearing movement.

Then again, I've seen guys just do it by feel, and they've never had one come back for bad wheel bearings, and I've seen guys put their impacts on low and zap it in there until it was good and snug. Whatever you feel comftorable with.