Big Red Brakes - Servicing

[Joshie]

After collecting my car from AmD on Friday where it has been for the last 4 weeks I noticed that my brakes (Porsche 993 TT calipers and X drilled rotors) were rumbling and causing some vibration through the steering. [img]images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

The pads were nowhere near worn out but I deglazed them. I noticed that almost every hole on the rotors were clogged with rust and muck. Took a 3.2mm drill bit and unblocked all of the holes. Result, vibration gone and brakes back to full efficiency. [img]images/graemlins/thumb.gif[/img]

Does anyone know if this is a necessary part of brake maintenance and what causes the blockages?

[Andiroo]

afraid so mate [img]images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] Very essential maintenance at that. Also clean thru the actual rotors, which unfortunately requires the disc off the car [img]images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

The holes tend to get clogged on mine at low speed driving when there isn't enough airflow thru the rotors to clear them - or on a very wet day when the material clogs - or on a trackday when there is just too much pad wear for the holes to cope [img]images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

If you leave them clogged for any length of time and then get the discs really hot, then your pads get hotter than they should, and the heat hardens the blocking material which also expands. This maybe contributes to cracking holes (IMHO), seems to make sense as mine are still OK after 20k miles [img]images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

Andiroo

[johneroberts]

Porsche rotors will need periodically "cleaning" in this way Ian, its only a problem in this country im led to believe, as its due to the inherant moisture in the atmosphere and the mixture of collected brake dust, reconstituting back into a hard material. [img]images/graemlins/033102bad_1_prv.gif[/img]
So look at doing it every 6-8 months to make sure that they will always work perfectly.
Cheers
jr

[Andiroo]

Or every 1000miles, whichever comes sooner [img]images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

Andiroo

[Bushy]

1000 miles, do this some weeks and certainly struggle to find time to clean her

never mind wheels off deglazing pads

jet wash the holes out at least once a week is about all it gets

[Bushy]

however i have started to change pads and oil every 1000 miles as an approach to good maintenance

[Joshie]

Thanks guys - and I've had these brakes for about 9 months now [img]images/graemlins/colflash.gif[/img]

Andy - when you say clean through the rotors do you mean clean the holes on both sdes. Just that a 3.2ml drill bit goes all the way though the holes at each side of the rotor. Or do you mean that there is another part of the rotor wich needs to be cleaned? [img]images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img]

[Andiroo]

yes mate, there is the actual rotor itself - look at the disc sideways on, you will see all the vane like channels that link the holes - can get very clogged up [img]images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

Andiroo

[Joshie]

Right - I was wondering what to do this evening [img]images/graemlins/biggrin3.gif[/img]