Anything different in this job? Any special tools? I am seeing a reference on some parts sights saying "Rotors may have non-reusable spindle nut."
Is this going to be more of a pain in the rear than I really want to help a friend (and I will be laying in the snow on cardboard tonight to do it if I can).
Tom Heath
Marketing / Club Coordinator
2/17/10 8:37 a.m.
The spindle nut is staked on; nothing special. Wise folks would probably replace it rather than beating on it to make a new detent, but it wouldn't stop me. Pretty standard job.
Start spraying the nuts and bolts with PB blaster NOW if you want to do the job tonight.
I wish you no rust!
hmmm, won't see the car until tonight. Maybe I will see if I can do it when I return from VIR.
Any idea on the size of spindle nut? I'm guessing bigger than my sockets go, but smaller than the few really big ones that I have bought for special projects.
The axle spindle nut is 32mm but you don't need to touch that to get the calipers or rotors off.
Front brakes are easy, you'll need a 19mm for the lugs, a 12mm for the bottom caliper bolt, then pull it off of the top pin. and a 17mm for the 2 bolts holding the caliper bracket to the backing plate.
Sometimes the rotor is lightly seized in place from rust, there are 2 threaded holes in the face between the lugs, use 2 bolts with the same threads as the bottom caliper bolt to push the rotor away from the hub.
Why do you need to remove the spindle nut? I should probably know this since I just did the front brakes on my finance's 2000 outback a few months ago, but I don't remember removing them.
I second the call for PB blast. Watch out for seized caliper pins. I had to replace a caliper b/c of that. Turns out NAPA was the only one that could get me a part.