I'm thinking of replacing my rotors myself with the drilled and slotted rotors that I got from Gene at Fred Beans. Is this job beyond the average 58 year retired person (did my own exhaust and Vortex ram air box) or should I just pay $200.'s to have it done. I would like to save the $$$'s for Ken King interior pieces, you know fixed income blah blah blah. From 1 to 10 how hard ? What torque for caliper bolts which locktite red or blue, emerg brake, how hard to adjust??? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks....

 

Hardest part is getting the brake caliper bracket bolts R&R'd. 125 lb-ft. torque is hard to get unless you've got the car on a lift. Also the bolts come off typically harder than that.

Use red loctite on everything and you'll be good to go. Helps also to have a service manual for your car for pictures, torque specs, etc.

HTH, and have a good one,
Mike

 

Personally, I'd buy the tools (if I didn't have them)
then do it myself. I don't usually trust some one else to use a torque wrench (to get it right)
you can subscribe to Alldata.com if you don't feel like laying out $150 for a shop manual. they have most everything you will need on their site.
and no i't not really difficult just intimadating the first time. if you havent changed pads ask for more help when the time comes.

 

Thanks guys, I do have a torque wrench and I will have a friends shop manual to help. I guess I just needed to hear it for myself that it's not so hard to do. Thanks

 

Have you ever replace brake pads before? Removed calipers, cleaned and preped the calipers, calapsed the pistons, etc? if you have not then I would suggest paying someone..

 

did mine yesterday with help from another forum member...its nice to have a 2nd set of hands for tying up the calipers while swapping the rotors and getting the caliper bolts back in while trying to line the caliper back up....took us about 90 minutes...

 

Not something to mess with if you dont know what you are doing IMHO!

 

I am a DIY guy but I though it was a 2 on a 1>10. Nothing technical.

 

yeah, I think with some help and a troque wrench you should be good to go.....oh yeah its a beotch to get the torque wrench in the wheel wells

 

You can do it! Go for it!

 

Bill, I just installed new rotors myself for the first time. Thanks to advice from some folks at the forum, the job was pretty easy. My 03 only has 6K miles so I didn't change the pads.
This is how it went for me:

Jacked up the front (2 jack stands and kept a little pressure on the jack for safety)

Remove front wheels. I used 100grit sand paper to remove the rusty stuff from the hub portion of the wheels. (stuck on there from the factory rotors) Need a good flat surface at the hub area when reinstalling the wheels.

Remove the retainer clips (2) from studs that keep the rotor in place.

Bust loose the 2 caliper bracket bolts (21mm). These were installed w/red loctite so the are tuff. There isn't much room to get a breaker bar in there for both bolts, do what works best. I just ended up pounding with the palm of my hand on my 1/2" drive Sears ratchet to get these bolts loose.

Carefully slide the caliper/bracket off the rotor and carefully set it up on the upper control arm. You don't want to let the assembly to hang by the brake line!

On 2 of the 4 hubs I had to bang the rotors free of the hub using a block of wood and a 5lb hammer. Go easy!!

Once the old rotor is off. Clean the rusty goop off the hub and around the lug studs with a clean wire brush. I found one of those tiny wire brushes works pretty well. It's very important that you have a smooth/clean mating surface there for the new rotor .

Slide on the new rotor. For the front only, I re-used the old retainer clips to keep the rotor in place. (the back rotors stayed put w/o the clips because the park brake shoes just keep the rotor in place)

I was able to simply slide the Caliper/bracket assembly right on to the new rotor without spreading the pads apart, pretty easily too. .
Install (CLEANED with a wire brush and with RED LOCTITE on them) the 2- 21mm bolts that hold the caliper bracket in place.
Ultimately these bolts should be torqued to 125ftlbs. In most cases, I couldn't fit my torque wrench in there so I ended up just putting a lot of muscle into it ( and a some re-pounding with the palm of my hand) until I was confident thse bolts were as tight as they should be.

Install the wheel, torqueing the nuts sequencially working up to 100lbs.

Repeat process on the other side.

For me the back rotor install was almost the same. I was lucky as I was able to carefully wiggle the old rotors off the parking brake shoes w/o any adjusting!

I did have a darn sore hand from all the pounding on the 1/2" drive ratchet getting those 21mm bracket bolts off and back on TIGHT!
That was the hardest part of the job!

Bob

 

I'd rate it at about a 4 out of 10, mainly because the caliper bracket bolts are so hard to get off. Other than that, this is really pretty straight forward. There are several good DIY pictorials available that help.
I'm sure someone knows on a link on this forum.

Tip: turn the front wheels to your advantage to get a better angle on your wrench when trying to get off the front caliper bracket bolts.

 

Thanks everyone for your help. I'm not going to do it myself. I had a heart attack a while ago and I think that removing the caliper bolts may be more that I should try. Dr. said no lifting anything over 35 lbs. and to break the bolts loose will be much more that. If I were younger I'd give it a go!!

 

Yikes!! For sure take it somewhere to get it done, or better yet find a local CF'er or Vette club member to help you out.

Have a good one,
Mike

 

It would be a good idea to have someone else do it for you. Those bolts will take much more than 35 lbs to get loose. They are pretty tight.

 

One more thought on the caliper bracket bolts would be to use one of those nifty cordless impact wrenches. Makes short work of it, no pounding or swearing. They're nice to have around if you swap wheels a lot, but you should also be able to rent one. Maybe a nearby forum buddy might even loan you his. In your shoes I'd absolutely pay somebody and hover. Don't want to tick the doc off or else he'll be telling you no spirited driving.

 

Gotta agree here on the impact wrench. It would have made a huge difference for me. At least on the bolt removal side of things. Other than that, the rest is pretty much routine (and common sense).

 

EDIT: just read the rest of the story, I wouldn't recomend you doing it.



just be careful, there are 2 kinds of Red Loctite, one will come off, the other is perminant, sorry i don't know the numbers.

Like other's have said, it's an easy job to do, just time consuming the 1st time and you'll get a work out getting the bracket bolts off. It's a lot easier with an impact wrench, but i've done it plenty of times w/o one.

A lot of time, the rotors will be rusted on to. Some WD40 and a BFH (big f. hammer) should get them off. I've also been told that liquid wrench is better than WD40. If you can get a lift, that'll make the job easier, but I've always used jack stands.

If they are you origional rotors, there is a small clip between the wheel and the rotor that the factory puts on there to hold the rotors in place while the car is on the assembly line, take them off and throw it a way, 2 on each wheel.

There is a word doc floating around with the brake section of the service manual, someone can probably e-mail it to you. It's step-by-step instruction with pictures that anyone could follow.