The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Driveline Warped rotors out of the box

Some might remember my saga with getting correct bolt spacing on my disk brake conversion two years ago.

Well, fast forward now it is driving and right away the rotors were warped. At first it was no big deal. Now that I am over the fun newness of it all it is annoying.

Is there a way to turn at home or am I removing them this winter and getting them turned?

Not surprising. I once had to have a 1/4" thick shoulder removed from the outboard side of new AC Delco brake drums.

I have a friend who owns a muffler/brake shop here in Atlanta. He turns drums and rotors straight from the box as a matter of course. They are all from China and they are all warped to some degree or another regardless of brand.

No, you can't do anything to them at home short of scuffing up the surface with sandpaper. Take them to a brake shop or NAPA. NAPA and O'Reilly's around here will turn brake rotors.

Depends. What kind of machines do you have at home.

Unless you have a brake drum lathe that cuts both sides of a rotor at the same time, it's very unlikely you'd be able to hold the .0005" parallelism from side to side that rotors need. Maybe with a very accurate lathe, a faceplate, and a tool post grinder? They're probably not warped- - - -the sides aren't true to each other. Half a thousandth is a strand of red hair- - - -split into three equal slices.
Jerry

My recently installed Disc Brake setup from CCP has a runout of about .003” on one of the disc and the other, not quite that bad. I haven’t driven the truck yet with the new setup but figured they would need to be turned at some point. Like allot of the parts I’ve installed, they were bought quite awhile before they were installed so returns were not possible.

I don't have a lathe at home. Will probably take apart this winter and have them turned.

After retirement and delivering parts commercially for Advance Auto there was two or three reputable shops that turned them out of the box. They commented it saved time and money, or call backs. Who would have thought it...........but then it IS from China.

I’ve had TERRIBLE luck with rotors from one of the big national parts chains on our modern family rig. They will always replace for free, but a guy gets tired of doing a brake job every year or thereabouts.

I forfeited my last free replacement set and paid up for OEM Honda stuff. So far, so good.

Hopefully you guys are paying less for a rotor re-turn than it costs in Dallas.

Most of the parts stores won't even turn rotors up here. One of the problems with turning rotors is if they get hot spots, those harden up and it's nearly impossible to get a true rotor after turning, as the hard spot sits proud of the rest, and soon feel "warped" again.

I don’t like naming names, but the bad rotors I’ve had come from a store that rhymes with Auto Zone.

The crappiest drums I've ever purchased in my life were AC Delco brand. They looked like copies of copies of copies of copies of copies of copies, ad infinitum. Made in China.

The finish on the cast iron was horrible. Cooling fins were almost non existent when compared to the originals as if the forming tools to make them were worn out after 50 years of use. 1/4" of meat had to be removed from the outboard shoulder to allow the shoes to seat properly. Brand names mean nothing these days.