I decided to replace my rotors, so I bought the front and rear sets from Autozone, along with an impact driver. I've goten the rotors off without too much hassle, but I was thinking I might rmove the dust shields while I'm here. It looks like the hub needs to come off to easily remove the front shileds (I haven't even gotten to the rears yet) so I thought it might be worth the while to repack the wheel bearings while I've got it this far apart.

So, the question is...

What size socket do I need for the hub nut? The big honkin one with the crimped lip.

What type of grease do I need to get? The dealer will be closed tomorrow, so I'm looking at auto parts store stuff. Any particular spec?

I haven't looked at the rears yet, but are they similar under the little domed cap back there? Should I even be concerned about those?

Thanks, for the help!

 

If you're just looking to remove the dust shields, the rears come off with 2 bolts. You can cut the fronts off without dismantling the hub. I cut mine off the other day. You can re-use your dust shields if you cut them correctly, cut about a 3" strip off each.

 

Dremel works great to cut a short section out of those shields, then they slip right off, and like he said, they're reusable.
But, the nut should be 32 mm if you really need to know.


[Modified by XR4racer, 6:54 PM 7/6/2002]

 

I wish I hadn't of cut off my front shields the way I did it. Knowing what I know now, I'll let you in on this little bit.

Dremel most of the shield away, but leave a section which protects the ABS wire and the lower balljoint. The rest can all go. Make sure you file down the edges so that you don't cut yourself.

Warren

 

If you want to re-install the dust shield later, you can cut it like this:
This is the passenger front dust shield. The 3" piece that gets cut out faces the front of the car. Thanks to Willard for inspiring my dremel to make these cuts so I can still use the dust shields.

 

What do you guys think if I drill some holds on the heat/dust shields, do you think that can provide some cooling to the brake and as the same time stiill give some protection to the brake system !? Anyone done this before ??

 

Thanks for the replies.

I may just cut them off like shown. It'll give me a reason to use the dremel sitting out in the garage. It looks like those screws have seen the working end of a pair of vise-grips. I'll have to bust out those as well.

So, WRT the wheel bearings: Should I worry about them at this point? I don't have any specific reason to think they are going bad, but I have 55K and 5 track events on them, and thought it would be a good time to take care of it if it's needed.

It is the general consensus that the shields should be removed to facilitate better brake cooling, right?

Warren, I'll take a look at what you are reffering to, and maybe keep that section of the shield. What about some sort of heat shielding around the wire?

 

I would imagine that the shield is a great piece to mount ducting to as well.

 

I've been kicking around the idea of mounting ducting to the dust shield for a while, but I don't know anyone else that's done it that way, and I hate being the guinnea pig. I figure you can cut a hole in the dust shield and direct the air right onto the hat so it blows evenly across both surfaces of the rotor. I still haven't figured out how to efficiently run the ducting from the bumper/grill to the rotors in the first place.

 

Yeah, I've been contemplating that one myself. I may use a 3" subwoofer port, with a flared edge, and cut a hole in the black part of the grille, where the factory fogs would go, and stick the ports in there. The only problem is the back-side of that location puts the ducting pretty close to the radiator. I may have to mess with it a bit.