I enjoyed a week of great driving after finally getting the registration tags. However, the rotors need to be machined and calipers cleaned. I am having a bear of a time removing the driver front rotor. The passenger side was able to walk off the hub pretty easy. Also, the rears knocked loose and came off without a fight. However, the driver front seems welded to the hub. I have tried a little heat (worried about too much for bearings in hub), lots of PB blaster, polished the hub end, little hammer and BFH, 3-jaw puller with spacer ring and metal plate over hubcap, caliper bolts pushing rotor - with absolutely no improvement. I tried removing the hub cap - per another forum - with channel locks and it doesn't budge. Seems like I will likely damage the cap to remove with big pipe wrench. I did see a hydraulic rotor puller at HF - see attached pic - and wondering the community thoughts. Also, any thoughts on getting the hub cap off without damaging? Image Unavailable, Please Login
Personally would use either a wood or plastic mallet on the backside of the rotors with steering on lock so you can get in there and just tap and rotate until it comes free, likely welded to the hub with corrosion.
I have smacked it from the back with dead blow hammer and to the face of hub with sledge - it hasn't even budged. The miniscule rocking I feel on the rotor seems to be all in the bearings. Doesn't seem to have any relative motion between rotor and hub. I am thinking of ice bags on the knuckle and then heat the rotor hub - see if I can get a temp differential to break it loose.
I haven't heard of superzilla - will look for it. There just doesn't seem to be any gap between the rotor and hub. Even tried using compressed air to push the PB blaster in the "gap".
I've had a few rusted together, torch fixed it but I was also replacing bearings. Heat and 50/50 acetone/ATF. Another thought... Paper towels, syran wrap and evaporust. Towels to hold/soak the evaporust and the syran to wrap it up so it doesn't dry out and stays contained. Check every couple hrs. Evaporust will chelate the rust away, might take a day or so.
I currently have rims out for powder and then new tires. Was going to try that if not removed by the time I get tires back.
I tried evaporust over night and started beating on it with wood and sledge from backside. Success and thanks again for all the help. Attached a pic with last big hit that flung rust out the gap. The rotor then slid right off. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Remove center dust cup then remove big nut and don’t forget to remove the small wheel guide pin Image Unavailable, Please Login
Thanks for the info and great pic - fortunately I didn’t have to go any deeper this time. I replaced all the pads and rebuilt the rear calipers - including the parking brake assy. I bed the brakes and then adjusted parking brake again to drag with 4 mil inch shim. finally have parking brake to make hill starts much easier.
