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This is not the 1st time I tried to remove rear rotor. As even about 25 000 miles back, I could not get them off.
Same happened today. Got caliper off, pads, caliper bracket. Rotor won’t budge. Took old faithful mallet to it, like I did before – nope, rock solid.
So, here’s the tips, as it took me about 40 minutes of very hard physical effort to get that thing off.
My car has 87 000 miles on it, but, like I said – 2 years ago and many miles less, I still could not get them off. And I know what I am doing.
1. It is not parking brake shoes holding it in place. Do NOT waste your time, backing up shoes. If rotor is sitting on the hub rock solid – not the shoes; wobbles a little bit but won’t come off – it’s shoes.
2. In case you are lucky and it IS shoes, locate rubber grommet and pop it out with flat head screwdriver.
3. Turn rotor so that resulting hole is at 32 minutes. Not 6 o’clock as manual says; you have to be slightly off, just like I said – at about 32 minutes mark, to get to adjuster. Adjuster is very narrow gear, so you have to be dead smack on it. You will NOT see adjuster wheel, it is pitch dark inside the rotor. Shining light through the hole does not help much; the way it worked for me, and I had 8 LED very bright flashlight, I cast light down into the hole from the top, at about 45 degrees. THEN you may possibly see adjuster.
4. By the book, adjuster is supposed to be turned “clockwise” to release parking brake shoes. Problem is, it is perpendicular to the rotor surface and then question becomes – which exactly way is clockwise? TO LOSEN THE SHOES, TURN ADJUSTER DOWN. You can access ONLY one side of it, facing you, so turning it down release shoes and you can slide rotor off. Parking brake self adjusts after you are done, just operate it several times.
5. You are not lucky. Rotor sits on hub solid. IT’S SELF WELDED TO THE HUB DUE TO RUST BETWEEN THE TWO. That’s what it is, mi amigos, and has none to do with it being hybrid or having regenerative brakes. I thought Honda was bad about this, well, come to find – its biggest competitor is no better.
6. First line of attack is – mallet. Take a hefty mallet and start hammering on the lower rear part of rotor. That’s about the only area you have enough swing to make, as you have to HIT IT HARD to have any results. Hit, rotate, hit, rotate, hit, rotate. You may get lucky, and it will pop loose.
7. No luck, it did not. Like mine. Grab some PB Bluster, insert straw, locate 2 holes in rotor with threads in them, and squirt a little bit of fluid in. Rotate and do same into the other hole. Repeat 5-6 times. Point is to get loosening fluid between hub and rotor. Squirt into little opening between studs and rotor, anywhere it will soak inside. Go have lunch.
8. Give it about an hour, maybe doing more squirts in between. Do the mallet thing again. It popped – hurray, it did not – well, next step.
9. Same bolts that hold caliper on guides will screw into 2 threaded holes in rotor( Thank you, Toyota). Start with hand tight, then put 14mm socket onto bolt head, and start turning it in. When it starts going sort of hard, stop, and do same with the opposite bolt. Then, go back to the first one, and keep alternating like this.
DO NOT OVERTORQUE BOLTS, as those holes have very shallow short threads and strip very easy, I learned that on Hondas. At some point, my rotor started making loud popping noise, like something was breaking. At that point I stopped, took bolts out, and noticed minor gap between hub and rotor, through those holes. Not being sure if were not tearing shoes inside, I squirted more PBB into that gap, and this time, it all went inside, instead of flowing out(GAP CREATED!!) and I went back for the mallet and after 4-5 solid swings and hits, rotor popped!
There was thick, solid layer of rust behind, where it was sitting on the hub. Btw, should you be burning through rotors or have wild non-diagnosable wobble in wheels – that rust easily causes it, as it does not allow rotor to sit flush on the hub. Now, thing is, and I had it done, mallet may not be enough. You may end up with sledge hammer taken to that rotor.
10. You got rotor off, 1st thing you do is to clean rust and put thick layer of antiseize between hub and rotor, to prevent this from happening again. DO NOT USE GREASE as brakes get hot, grease burns and cakes, and you back to same issue, just for different cause.
Last tip here – YOU HAVE TO HIT THAT ROTOR HARD, AS IN – FULL SWING HARD. New rotor is only $50 by Raybestos at O’Reilly, no big deal. And I had them sledged before, and never broke anything.
Also found my parking shoes were pretty much gone, will have them swapped Saturday. That was pass side one. I’ll have to wrestle with driver one then.
Mof, I am considering buying air hammer. That rotor is not easy to hit by hand.
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Added parking shoes replacement piece:
In lieu of my previous post, on how to remove stuck rear rotor, I did driver side one today, along with parking shoes replacement.
Beware. If you have little patience and are not handy – do not attempt to replace parking shoes. It’s total PITA. I had same with my inlaw Corolla. This one is even worse. Took me only 3 hrs to do one side.Anyhow. You feel confident in your skill, so here’s a few tips for you:
1. Tools needed: 14mm wrench; 14mm 12 point socket; PB Bluster of equivalent; rag; cheat bar; needle nose pliers; flat head screwdriver; caliper grease; tray or something to cover floor; hammer; mallet; sledge hammer maybe; dust mask; anti-seize and a lot of it. I used gloves.
[IMG]http://i42.tinypic.com/9vfmn8.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i43.tinypic.com/28sa2jk.jpg[/IMG]
2. Take wheel off. Here’s the little hole for screwdriver to be put through, to rotate adjuster wheel down, to loosen parking brake shoes
[IMG]http://i39.tinypic.com/wgqoty.jpg[/IMG]
3. Squirt PB Bluster or equivalent into every hole you can find, that will drain it down between hub and rotor. Squirt a little bit at a time, rotating rotor same time; squirt next to studs also.
[IMG]http://i40.tinypic.com/msgo0l.jpg[/IMG]
While it’s all soaks,
[IMG]http://i42.tinypic.com/20h36mv.jpg[/IMG]
you can remove pads, caliper, by loosening 2 bolts in the back, 14mm head:
[IMG]http://i42.tinypic.com/14y7h8l.jpg[/IMG]
If they start spinning freely, back up two 14mm heads on slides:
[IMG]http://i44.tinypic.com/ld6km.jpg[/IMG]
Then slide caliper slides out for lubrication with caliper or brake grease:
[IMG]http://i41.tinypic.com/r8whhj.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i41.tinypic.com/2qwpp1l.jpg[/IMG]
and remove caliper bracket. For this, do not use cheap wrenches, but go for good 12 point 14mm socket. I pretty much stripped mine. Mine were very tight, I had to take cheat pipe to the wrench:
[IMG]http://i40.tinypic.com/2zq7cie.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i39.tinypic.com/qnl3yd.jpg[/IMG]
4. Now you are up to stubborn rotor removal. First, grab good hammer and tap vigorously everywhere around hub part of the rotor:
[IMG]http://i42.tinypic.com/2wokdgj.jpg[/IMG]
This actually worked for me this time.
If it did not work, take mallet and hit rotor with all strength along the leading pads edge, rotating it all the time:
5. If this did not work, find some 8mmx1.0 bolts, insert them into 2 threaded holes in rotor, and start turning them in, few turns each bolt. When it starts going tight, do only 1/4 turn per bolt, alternating them. This pries rotor away from the hub. With quite loud bang.
[IMG]http://i40.tinypic.com/i5x841.jpg[/IMG]
If you were in a pinch, caliper bolts fit into the same holes. I do NOT recommend using them. I stripped one today, and spent another hour or so, driving around finding replacement. So don’t do it. Not worth it. Hammer works fine.
6. Now you have access to parking shoes.
Here’s rust behind rotor on hub:
[IMG]http://i41.tinypic.com/2qso5g4.jpg[/IMG]
And inside rotor:
[IMG]http://i39.tinypic.com/1tadxe.jpg[/IMG]
And that rust basically bonds the two together. I liberally lubricated contact area with anti seize compound:
[IMG]http://i43.tinypic.com/14llrme.jpg[/IMG]
7. To take shoes off, remove springs:
[IMG]http://i42.tinypic.com/153qlop.jpg[/IMG]
Then press and rotate caps with springs behind them, holding shoes in place:
[IMG]http://i41.tinypic.com/qzr5tv.jpg[/IMG]
Until they slipoff the little rods. You want to stick you finger behind the dust shield, and hold base of that rod in place, then press and twist. THIS IS PAIN. There is no good access to them, holes in hub do not coincide with those plates, so you have to work from the side. Pain.
8. Disconnect the parking brake cable. To do so, you need to open ends of U-shaped clip, and slide it off. New brakes DO NOT come with that clip, so you mess it up – you in deep doo-doo. I used flat screwdriver to pry it open, grabbing with channel locks to prevent turning same time. Another pain.
9. Now you can remove shoes. There is another spring at the bottom to be removed, easy. Then, stuff starts falling down. Some shiny metal bracket with flat spring fell down, and I had to take the opposite side brakes apart, to figure out, where it came from.
Here’s how it all is supposed, roughly, to be installed back. Friendly suggestion is, do one side at a time, constantly checking with the opposite, assembled side, for what goes where.[IMG]http://i39.tinypic.com/2vkdpmu.jpg[/IMG]
10. Putting it all back together is another total pain, as you have very little access to space behind the hub. Took me about 40 minutes and a lot of cussing, to just put left hand side plate with spring behind it back. Only because I am right handed, and was trying to use right hand fingers to squeeze plate and spring back onto the shoe. On pure hunch, I changed hands, and did it with left hand in 10 seconds.
I gave up. I did not even try to go and do the pass side today. Maybe will do it tomorrow. It is totally royal pain to do.
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