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Brakes

Alienspecimen

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Best Coast RI
This is it.
This weekend I am finally going to change my front brakes (thank you for your suggestions on what kind I should buy...).
Is there anything that I should be aware of? Is there anything else that I can tweak with while doing that?
How would I know if my rotors need to be turned? What would happen If I dont do it?
Thank you very much in advance.
Boris
 
Do your rotors need to be turned? If they have gouges in them, then yes you should have them turned or replace them if they're damaged too severely.
They are "hubless" rotors, which keeps the price reasonable.
Do you have a pulsation when you step on the brakes, if so, they need to be turned or replaced.
If they look OK and haven't been giving you a problem, then you can just take the "shine" off them with some medium grit sand paper and a circular sanding motion.
Check around the rubber seal of the caliper piston for any leakage (even if it just looks wet) if so replace the caliper. Check the hoses for soft/bad spots.

Anywhere the pads slide metal to metal on the caliper, wire brush the rusty area and apply a SPECIAL high temp grease made for this purpose. (I have found anti-seize works well, also.)

Do NOT step on the brakes while they are apart!!!

Always use new, fresh brake fluid if needed.

I'm sure I forgot a little something that someone else will remember.

It sounds much more complicated than it really is.
 
I didn't catch the first time around what year XJ it is. If it's an earlier one, there may be a couple of funny little springs between the pads and the caliper brackets, and it may not be obvious how they go back together. Therefore you should disassemble only one side at a time so you have the other side as reference. Those springs were present on the 87 and absent on the 95.

In my experience, these days it doesn't make much sense to turn rotors unless they're rare or exotic. It costs nearly as much to turn them as to replace them, you have to wait, and chances are very good they'll warp when you use them. A little scoring or rust won't hurt anything anyway, and I believe most brake shops turn too aggressively, shortening rotor life. I'd assume that if your brakes aren't pulsating or chattering, and if you didn't wait until the pads were scraping metal, you don't need rotors - just do the pads. An exception might be if your Jeep has many many miles, and/or lives in a rust-prone area. Then you might need to check for thickness or incipient collapse (from rust eating away the webbing inside) even if the surfaces are good. But if you don't turn the rotors nothing will happen. Your brakes will feel as they did before. If you decide later the rotors are bad, you can replace them. You don't have to do both jobs at the same time. In fact, one of our more preformance oriented regulars here, "XJGuy," now AWOL, contended that it's better not to do them together, and that new rotors will break in better with used pads. I cannot vouch for this, though.

While you're down there it's a good time to check for other wear and damage. Look very carefully at the flexible hoses leading to the calipers. If there are any cracks in the rubber, replace them. When the pads are out is also the ideal time to check your front wheel bearings for smoothness.
 
I always hear people say, it's just as cheap to replace rotors as it is to turn them.

If you are getting charged anywhere near the cost of even the cheapest new rotors you are getting ripped off.

I just bought new rotors and they cost $25 each (trying the cheap rotor/expensive pad method often touted here) because the older ones were turned a few times and one more turn would have left them too thin. I had the old ones turned a few times and every place I called only charged $6 each to turn. I always coincide a pad change with a rotor turning and if they're too thin to turn, replace them. It's cheap around here (maybe not everywhere apparently) and makes a rotor just as good as new.

That being said, I also notice that a rotor that has been turned a few times (or even one) will be thinner and therefore warp easier, but regardless it still prolongs the life of the rotor.

Use your own judgement, but that's my experience.
 
Ok, I have to admit that I just change the pads most of the time and just deglaze the rotor. But he wanted to know how to do it correctly. (Whatever that is)
 
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