Did the new pads and rotors. The first wheel took about 4 hours. The second took about 30 minutes. Here is what I learned:
In addition to the hex bolt, the rotor is secured by two rolled pins. At least one of these needs to be removed since they appear to exert significant holding pressure on the rotor. They are removed by hammering them out with a heavy hammer. I used the metal side of a heavy mallet and an improvised metal punch (an old socket wrench extension).
The socket extension was narrow on the end where it connects to the work piece and wider on the end where it connects to the wrench. Because the wide end matched the diameter of the rolled pin, I figured I could hammer the narrow end through the hollow core of the pin and the wide end would push it through if the narrow part didn’t.
What I actually succeeded in doing was jamming the extension solidly into the rolled pin where it did not budge. I wasted about 2 hours reverse-hammering to try and get the extension out, but no luck. Finally, I used a 3-foot pipe section to break off the extension flush with the surface of the rotor. I used a second socket extension to hammer out what was left of it, and it popped right out – with the rolled pin. Unfortunately, the last hammer blow may have been too hard and now, in place of the rolled pin, the second socket extension was stuck in its place.
This was truly becoming worthy of a movie script.
I was fortunate enough to have one of those closed, trapezoidal wrenches where you have to turn the cylindrical screw in the handle to tighten it against a nut, bolt or whatever. I slipped it over the wide end of the new socket extension, and tightened it around the narrow end. After three or four blows of the hammer against the wrench handle, the extension came out – and the rotor fell off.
Wheel number two went smoothly. This time I hammered out both rolled pins. About four blows of the hammer knocked the rotor off. (The rotor would not budge at all with the rolled pins in place.)
# # #
So far I am pleased with the new pads. No visible dust, but I am still breaking them in – as well as the rotors.
I did notice that the driver’s side pads, and the rotor, were very unevenly worn – one pad was about half the thickness of the other, and one side of the rotor was more worn than the other. I am wondering if I have a bad piston (perhaps from pushing it too far back on my last brake job?)
I am also having vacuum issues, which I am addressing in another thread. For the past year or so this has required me to use a a bit more brake pedal pressure than normal. The new pads and rotors make the pedal feel firmer, but I can still sense it is not as it should be.
Hopefully the vacuum issue is the problem, though I would not mind replacing calipers since it is such an easy job.