I was checking on my front wheel hubs and brake rotors when I noticed (or rather, remembered) that the hub's turn force is very inconsistent when I turn it... at one point it will be fairly smooth, then get tough, and then it gets easy to turn again.

I checked the width of the rotors with a caliper, and I got some severely mixed results... mainly because if you don't put it in JUST the right spot it will through the reading off entirely.

But anyway, it seemed that my rotors likely have a runout of about .1mm... but is that enough to cause the brake pad to rub on it, and make it harder to turn?

I figure I should just go ahead and replace them since they're...well, rusted to hell and back everywhere but the friction surfaces (rust on the inside certainly isn't going to help the rotors cool off anyway... unless it actually does? who knows...).

OTOH I don't really have any pulsing in the brake pedal... but having it like this makes the bearings hard to adjust (unless this is actually a problem with the bearings instead?).


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Also, I had my mom move the steering wheel back and forth while I had the wheels off, and I could hear and maybe feel (I'm not sure) a little bit of slack coming from the steering rack. It may have only been the point at which the rack passes the middle point and starts going in the opposite direction...but maybe not.

I disconnected the outer tie rods to see if the slack was in the inner or outer rods... and I couldn't feel any slack in the inners, and it also still made the same noise, so it couldn't be the outers either (note to self... be careful about not hitting the threads on the outer rods... I had to leave my car home because I fudged up the threads on the rods and couldn't get new ones in time...although I needed to replace them anyway because the boots were torn up and they were probably contaminated).

Anyone know if a tiny bit of slack in the rack is normal (at least when it crosses the mid-point?)? The column u-joints OTOH didn't seem to have any play.

 

Also, are Brembo blanks that much better than say, Raybestos ones, seeing as how they cost twice as much?