My brake rotors are stuck. I have tried heat, sledge hammer, and even lime-away.

I have read that the hub can be removed and the disc pressed off. I have 4 wheel ABS. Can the hub be removed with the ABS sensor in place? I don't want to damage the sensor.

Anybody have any luck cutting the disk? I don't want to limit my availability to drive the truck to a repair shop if my efforts fail.

 

I have a 2000 F150 4x4 and I just had this problem. My rotors were not warped, so I put the old pads back on so I could drive it a little to find out if I had warped the rotors by beating on them. Well, the front brakes do not cause the steering wheel to shake, so I am going to put new pads on the rotors without resurfacing them. I 'll worry about the rotors after 80k more miles.

 

Great news! I used a sawzall to make two cuts through the rotor(180 degrees apart), including 1/4 inch into the hub area.

I then drilled a series of blind holes in the face of the hub portion of the rotor (from the end of the cuts to the hub concentric).

Two hammer blows on each rotor, and they split in two and fell off.

Used anti seize on the hubs after cleaning, prior to installing the new rotors.

 

Wow! I'm glad you got them off, but it is amazing how they can stick so tight. I don't think mine are warped so I didn't want to destroy them. Next time I will have to I guess.

 

i use a big hammer have never hit them more than 5 times to break the rotor part off of the hat part they crack real easy if you hit them right. then once i get the disc of the hat part will ussually slide off easy.

i could see this causing a bearing failure from the hard hits but i have never had a problem yet.

 

bluedl1000.. Thanks for posting how you got your rotors finally off.. I was just searching the net when i found this site.. i dont have a Ford truck but i do have a 97 Ford Contour with frozen rotors on ive been fighting with for 3 days now and in gonna head out and get a SawZall right now.. its the one thing i havent tried.. i did the heat, hammering, drenching in penetrating oil etc..

Your SawZall and drilling Idea looks to me like a sure bet to work.. I was even going to pull everything apart take the hub off and try pressing the rotors off.. But like i said your 180* degree cut and drilling Idea makes perfect sense to me.

Thanks for posting what worked for you.

Ill post back on how it goes

 

Hey mr bentwrench, where did you hit the rotor to get it to crack? I've been beating on mine all day and all I got to show for it is a ringing in my ears. Did you use a chisel or just the hammer?

 

On mine I used a grinder & cut slots in the rotor(by the wheel studs) then hit it with a hammer & it will come right off. Takes less than 5 minutes for each one. New rotors are pretty cheap so this is the way to go. Or you can take it to Ford & they can turn the rotors while on the vehicle.

 

Sounds like a good idea. Thanks a lot. I think that's where they are sticking, right around the stud webbing. I have to trash the old ones anyway because they were warped. Now they are warped with a bunch of hammer marks on them. I picked up some rotors last week at Advance for about $40 a pop.