My 14 yr old Ford Kuga suddenly developed a bit of vibrations on the steering at around 45-55mph.
Thinking I'd lost a balance weight, after a few short journeys which confirmed the vibration, I took it into a local Tyre place to get the front wheel balances checked.
After a few minutes the guy came back and said 'You've got a brake problem mate, Driver's Front won't turn when it's jacked up and the disc is pretty hot...'
After quoting me nearly £600 to replace the front brakes, I declined his offer and carefully drove it the few miles home, avoiding braking if at all possible. When I got home I grabbed my Infrared Temp Gun and check the 4 brake disc temperatures. Three of them were 18-20C.
The offending Driver's Front was almost 270C
I stripped that side down first, and the calliper was solid, a G Clamp wouldn't retract it at all.
When I tried to remove the Disc on that side, it was solid, nothing would move it. When I eventually cut it off with a Cutting wheel, I had to go the whole hog until I only had the mating face and about 1/4 of the side wall, see photo for what I mean.
Basically I removed the main disc by cutting through the Red Lines, then I cut around the centre in segments as per the Blue lines.
I still had to use a cold chisel to separate the 'front' disc of it from the drive shaft face.
- 20240327_115433.jpg (2.31 MiB) Viewed 353 times
- Disc Cuts.JPG (49.38 KiB) Viewed 353 times
The other side all came apart quite normally.
The rebuild took longer than expected as it turned out that although I'd ordered the correct, 25mm thick Discs, the manufacturer had screwed up. Packaging had the right part number on it, the Discs had the right part number etched on them, but they were 28mm thick, NOT 25mm
Total cost of parts about £173 including Discs, Callipers and Hoses.
Correct Discs arrived this morning, all fitted and Test Drive was satisfactory...
It's not just 70 yr old classics that can require all weekend for a 'simple job'....
