Est. 1998 — 27 years of woodworking knowledge
OT- vehicle brake question
Tom Norton
I am going to replace the rotors on my wife's Ford Fusion. I see some rotors have 2 screws/bolts that hold the rotors on. How critical are these? It seems that they might be primarily used as an installation item at the factory.
Re: OT- vehicle brake question
Mark Nowicki
Not an automotive engineer, but more of a bean-counter by education.
The bean counter part of me says if not needed why go to the trouble of drilling the disk, and drilling and tapping the hub.
Ford would have probably used a disposable barbed washer if it was only to help during assembly.
Re: OT- vehicle brake question
Tony-Memphis
I'm not sure if it is the same thing, but my Z had something similar on the original rotors. I bought replacements from Nissan and they were not there (been a while - details are fuzzy) - nor were the holes.
Tony
Not to install but to
Dustmaker Mike
those screw holes are there to help pull the rotors when they get stuck on the shaft, in the salt belt. If you are down south, or don't get much rust I wouldn't worry about them. Up here in NE Ohio I make sure they are there.
Ahhhh...
Tony-Memphis
Knew there had to be a reason!
Remove them
Hoa in Alameda
On all of my vehicles, I remove them the very first time I have a chance (e.g. tire rotation).
I don't think they serve any practical purpose, except probably for assembly at the factory.
I learned from my experience: on one of the cars I bought used, when working on the brakes, I had to use an impact driver to remove them. Never again.
Re: OT- vehicle brake question
TomD
If the holes in your rotors are tapped with threads, then they are there to jack the rotors off, which can be a real bear.
Some anti-seize in the right places can also help. The wrong places would be those on the braking surfaces or likely to run into them.