Turning my own rotors....
12-13-2008, 02:58 PM
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Turning my own rotors....
** sorry the pics aren't the best quality. I didn't take my camera and just used my cell phone for pictures. **
I wouldn't call this a DIY unless you are familiar with the machinery and steps.
Just to preface: I bought a set of Powerslot (slotted) rotors to replace my warped brembo OEM rotors about 25k-30k miles ago, and did not change my pads since i still had about 80% left. I had the Brembo pads.
1. Recommendation that cannot be said enough: ALWAYS change your pads when you replace your rotors, otherwise you will be doing exactly what i did
much sooner than should be required. Most rotors should last at least twice as long as mine have before encountering problems (on normal driving conditions) and live the length of the life of the car.
Here is a picture of the rotors before hand.
As you can see they are grooved a bit and glazed over. [this is also after take a wire cup drill bit and cleaning off the corrosion around the center of the rotor.]
Unfortunately for me, I found out that there is not ONE place in Memphis that will turn slotted rotors. I definitely did not trust the one place who "said" they would, but took 5 times of me explaining what a slotted rotor was.... no thanks.
On the other hand, luckily for me, my father is a hydro-engineer and a machinery specialist and we drove up to his work so that i could turn the rotors.
I first tried to cut the rotor using a manual lathe. For those who don't know what one is, a lathe is a machine tool used principally for shaping pieces of metal (and sometimes wood or other materials) by causing the workpiece(the rotor in my case) to be held and rotated by the lathe while a tool bit(we used a diamond cutting piece today on the rotor) is advanced into the object causing the cutting action--- it has an error clearance down to 1/1,000th of an inch. this is pretty crucial as I will state further below, rotors aren't made for much error room... I could automatically tell this was not a good idea... and found out why most places do not turn them. Due to the slots, the cut was interrupted, and was causing quite a bit of chatter, gouging the rotor.
I pulled it off, and moved over to a surface grinder. I should have just done this in the first place. The surface grinder I used today consisted of a magnetized 18" table that is stationary. The upper wheel was the grinding wheel and followed the "spark out" technique by passing the rotor under the wheel, without resetting the depth of cut until no sparks came from the grinding/rotor. This ensured that any inconsistencies in the machine or rotor were eliminated. This surface grinder used a water/oil based coolant to extract the particles, and this machine is even better with precision down to 1/10,000th of an inch.
Here's the rotor in the surface grinder before it began to actually make an improvement on the face of the rotor...
You can see here, where the new metal has been removed and showing through:
Front Rotors : MIN THICKNESS is 1.118"
I had PLENTY of room to spare with these rotors. After turning both sides here is where I ended:
Rear Rotors : MIN THICKNESS 20.2mm (these I had even more available rotor to cut)
The surface grinder prooved to be an awesome machine for this job, the face of the rotor does still have a bit of roughness required to bite the pad.
and here they are after me cleaning the rest of them up.
so all in all a pretty cool way to spend my day. but now i'm FILTHY.
I wouldn't call this a DIY unless you are familiar with the machinery and steps.
Just to preface: I bought a set of Powerslot (slotted) rotors to replace my warped brembo OEM rotors about 25k-30k miles ago, and did not change my pads since i still had about 80% left. I had the Brembo pads.
1. Recommendation that cannot be said enough: ALWAYS change your pads when you replace your rotors, otherwise you will be doing exactly what i did
much sooner than should be required. Most rotors should last at least twice as long as mine have before encountering problems (on normal driving conditions) and live the length of the life of the car.
Here is a picture of the rotors before hand.
As you can see they are grooved a bit and glazed over. [this is also after take a wire cup drill bit and cleaning off the corrosion around the center of the rotor.]
Unfortunately for me, I found out that there is not ONE place in Memphis that will turn slotted rotors. I definitely did not trust the one place who "said" they would, but took 5 times of me explaining what a slotted rotor was.... no thanks.
On the other hand, luckily for me, my father is a hydro-engineer and a machinery specialist and we drove up to his work so that i could turn the rotors.
I first tried to cut the rotor using a manual lathe. For those who don't know what one is, a lathe is a machine tool used principally for shaping pieces of metal (and sometimes wood or other materials) by causing the workpiece(the rotor in my case) to be held and rotated by the lathe while a tool bit(we used a diamond cutting piece today on the rotor) is advanced into the object causing the cutting action--- it has an error clearance down to 1/1,000th of an inch. this is pretty crucial as I will state further below, rotors aren't made for much error room... I could automatically tell this was not a good idea... and found out why most places do not turn them. Due to the slots, the cut was interrupted, and was causing quite a bit of chatter, gouging the rotor.
I pulled it off, and moved over to a surface grinder. I should have just done this in the first place. The surface grinder I used today consisted of a magnetized 18" table that is stationary. The upper wheel was the grinding wheel and followed the "spark out" technique by passing the rotor under the wheel, without resetting the depth of cut until no sparks came from the grinding/rotor. This ensured that any inconsistencies in the machine or rotor were eliminated. This surface grinder used a water/oil based coolant to extract the particles, and this machine is even better with precision down to 1/10,000th of an inch.
Here's the rotor in the surface grinder before it began to actually make an improvement on the face of the rotor...
You can see here, where the new metal has been removed and showing through:
Front Rotors : MIN THICKNESS is 1.118"
I had PLENTY of room to spare with these rotors. After turning both sides here is where I ended:
Rear Rotors : MIN THICKNESS 20.2mm (these I had even more available rotor to cut)
The surface grinder prooved to be an awesome machine for this job, the face of the rotor does still have a bit of roughness required to bite the pad.
and here they are after me cleaning the rest of them up.
so all in all a pretty cool way to spend my day. but now i'm FILTHY.
12-13-2008, 03:28 PM
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Actually yes i am. that is tomorrow's project!
Yes -they were coated before... I am going to paint them a semigloss-black. will go well with my plans for the exterior styling of the car
I'll follow up with the rest of the pics tom after painting and installation to complete the whole process.
Yes -they were coated before... I am going to paint them a semigloss-black. will go well with my plans for the exterior styling of the car
I'll follow up with the rest of the pics tom after painting and installation to complete the whole process.
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12-13-2008, 04:45 PM
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lol i prob could have washed the car before hand and prevented a lot of it. but pointless here. it's been raining for the past two-three weeks. and machine shops aren't clean. :P
