The daily driver my wife drives is a 1996 GMC Suburban, 3/4 ton heavy duty,
4x4. It has the full floating rear end, 8 lug bolt pattern, and all the
other heavy duty features. It also sports a Vortec 454, with supercharger.
It was time for the brakes to be looked at, so I went and picked up a set
of pads for the front and shoes for the rear drums. When I pulled off the
front tire, and pulled off the calipers I noticed that the inner surface of
the rotor was all chewed up, the other surface was fine. Time for new
rotors. I head out to my FLAPS and get a new set of rotors (at only $50 a
side, ouch). Back at my shop I procede to attempt to take off the rotors.
Now most disk brake applications out there, the rotors are held in simply
by virtue of the caliper and the lug nuts. So I whip out my trusty SnapOn
multi-purpose hub puller that I picked up at a garage sale a couple years
ago, and start to crank on the center bolt to (hopefully) pop the rotor off
the hub. Bzzzzt! thank you for playing too bad you didn't use a life line.
All this managed to do was push the half shaft out of the center spline.
Rotors were still on tight.
Flash forward three hours solid work and a night's sleep. I've tried
everything in my shop I can think of, I've determined that the four bolts on
the back side that I can spot with a tiny mirror and flashlight are not 9/16,
5/8, 15mm or 14mm. As best I can tell they are some wierd round headed bolt
with 7 semicircular bite taken out of the rim. A special GM tool.
Well everything goes back together, and I spend another hour pulling the CV
joint apart so that the half-shaft won't flop around and destroy my
suspension. I then wire up the remains of the axle with bailing wire
cardboard and duct tape, put the tire back on and take it to the local
Chevy dealer for them to use their special tool (instead of buying it for
$200).
Flash forward 8 hours. Dealer tells me that Mr Goodwrench with his state
of the art shop, all the special GM tools you could hope to want, a
warehouse of spareparts, and ASE certification hasn't quite finished
buttoning up the rear drums yet. I guess I shouldn't feel too bad about my
lack of success.
OB oletrucks: I drove my '57 to work today, it started right up after
having sat in my shop for the past month when I parked it after getting
hay. I know that when I have to change out the rotors on it, they will
just flop off once the caliper and wheel are taken off.
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Miq Millman miq@teleport.com
Tualatin, OR
oletrucks is devoted to Chevy and GM trucks built between 1941 and 1959
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