Brakes

[Timd32]

I had the pleasure of spending some quality time with my '18 2500 6.4 Gasser today. All the HD brakes are the same from what I can tell.

Ordered up parts for my brakes from Geno's, it all arrived in about a week which was pretty awesome.

I worked up a whole post but lost it adding the photo, so this re write will be quicker.

All I can say is it can be a miserable job. I found a nice trick on line where you use the caliper bracket mounting hole with a 1/2 bolt to push off the rotor, it makes a loud crack noise, then you rotate a little and work it off.

Mine were really rusty, so lots of patience and it's not really a fun job when you procrastinate as I did. If you are on the fence if this has never been done and it's a Northeast truck, I would probably pay the $1500 labor to have this done, I'm pretty sure that would be the going rate for a neglected truck.

it was not that the rotors were that bad, but my pad sliders the little stainless deals were all messed up and the pads were mushroomed with rust.

I really should have done these probably 4 times by now and really suggest folks who have newer rigs keep up on this.

The little stainless things are pretty magnetic and rusted on mine, or atleast the rust appeared that way, the pads were beyond frozen, my caliper slides were good.

Cleaned it all up and back on the road.

I have the parts to do the rears, but have to do some other stuff, I don't think they are too bad.

 

[AH64ID]

How many miles on that rig?

 

[Timd32]

How many miles on that rig?

68k

 

[Timd32]

At one point I was going to remove the entire hub and deal with it, that's why the axle nut is loose.

 

[Timd32]

Hub removal on the passenger side was not in the cards, you have the ABS sensor of course, and the lower front bolt has the steering linkage in the way. Push come to shove of course there are ways around all of that, I just figured overall would be faster to brute strength this thing.

I did not choose to do this project, the project choose me, we did a large job for a number of months in really rough mud and daily had mud and giant puddles to go thru, being in the winter it was pretty hard to work all day and keep up on washing these out. I knew it was going to cause issues.

The passenger side outer pad froze up and destroyed it self. The caliper slides were in great shape, they have a really nice design feature to them and the boots and pins were in really great shape.

I don't pull a trailer much in the winter, so there was some growling from the passenger side, I knew it was gone.

Here is what I was working with. On the passenger side.

On the back side of the rotor there was a huge interference with the hub. No level of beating made any progress. The 8# maul actually broke on the drivers side so had to stop every once in a while to repeat that.

Finding that caliper bolt trick was invaluable but again it was still movie magic as that was only part of my issue. Once I cracked the rust from the hub to the rotor it still would not budge.

The caliper trick, I used the old pad and you take a bolt and back nut it between the rotor and mounting bracket, this is the large 17mm dia hole. Then the nut will hold the bolt tight then you run the bolt in and it pushes out the rotor. There was a ton of pressure on this thing so use caution, I thought I was going to snap the hardware. I also worked it around a little bit, and at this point it was being sprayed with Kroil for many hours.

You can tell the Kroll was working by the sound the oil would make spraying in the stud holes, and you can see it visually would enter the hole.

Once broken loose it was more work but faster to beat it off.

Here are some shots of this rotor. At this point it's still stuck as can be, it's not hung up on the studs they were not damaged by all this. It was inching off little by little.

It was stuck on the back side. Can see where that red is showing that's all the parts that had to break away.

Before the bolt trick I sent this to my friend, he actually sent me the bolt trick.



Crude, novice, it is what it is, glad I have my day job. But I stuck with it as best possible, what should have been a 2hr job was about 6hr all in. Not sure what the magic trick is they use, cracking the rust on the drivers side it came right off. It was not easy, but I did not use that bolt trick on that side.

My only suggestion is keep up on these and separate them maybe annually, not sure on the time frame. All I had was some of the aluminum antiseeze, not going to have much hope for that, never checked the heat rating.

Axle Nut torque was listed 132ft lb, rotate 5 to 6 times, then 263ft lb. I never unseated the hub, but followed the values I had anyway. Doubt it needed that step torque for just taking the nut off. The nut seemed reusable, I seen some that are not. Ford focus has this odd cage deal that kinda destroys it self. I did not see any special thread locker on this nut.

Lugs were torqued to 130ft lb.

 

[Topzide]

@Timd32, Thanks for the write up! Agree on annual take down to prevent issues. I've been lax on annual but have done bi-annual and am glad that I at least do that. Give me the opportunity to check wear and address any issues found. Up keep protects the investment! Need to make it last as long as I possibly can, new one not in the cards any time soon!

 

[Timd32]

@Timd32, Thanks for the write up! Agree on annual take down to prevent issues. I've been lax on annual but have done bi-annual and am glad that I at least do that. Give me the opportunity to check wear and address any issues found. Up keep protects the investment! Need to make it last as long as I possibly can, new one not in the cards any time soon!

Thanks,

It's such a nice system on these trucks, the brackets are nice, the calipers are nice, once all cleaned up and put back it should be a simple process. Wait 4 years and live in any sort of weather area where salt and brine are used, plus it gets used a truck, I'm not hauling the max GVCW here, but it's a lot of little smaller trips and heat cycles on these.

This is a case of do as I say not as I do, overall the truck is not eaten up by salt it's fairly clean under there. Obviously I caused my self the most pain here by not doing stuff regularly and I will own that part for sure need to do better.

My goal is to do the ATF here today, have all the parts for that, and a new pan with drain, just a Dorman pan. Then inspect the rears hopefully no surprises there, if they look OK they will stay for a few weeks have a trip from NJ to MO to pick up a 1963 Willlys wagon with my 24' deckover so really need this thing in good shape for that trip.

 

[nukegm]

comrades - i bought a " porta power " decades ago for just that rotor issue on multiple vehicles... it really is crazy how a little rust can be so immovable. ive even had to take a full size sledge hammer along with wooden blocking to get a wheel off an old chevy blazer...also, glad im not the only one this happens to ( video ) cheers all!

 

[Timd32]

comrades - i bought a " porta power " decades ago for just that rotor issue on multiple vehicles... it really is crazy how a little rust can be so immovable. ive even had to take a full size sledge hammer along with wooden blocking to get a wheel off an old chevy blazer...also, glad im not the only one this happens to ( video ) cheers all!

Good idea, don't have one of those. But they are cheap enough, the caliper bracket is fairly stout. Thanks for sharing that tip.