Get the car in the garage and prepare to take off the driver's side wheel. Pull out Jack, Jack's Stands, grab the long metric sockets, the breaker bar, and of course disposable gloves. First things first, break the lug bolts (yes bolts, and I hate Volkswagen for it) then raise the car with Jack, simple. Oh wait! Nothing is that simple with me and my Scirocco!
Twisted that little piece of junk in twain! That's what I get for trying to use my cheap Taiwanese 3/8" to 1/2" socket adapter for anything that requires force. Oh well, I can't say I miss it. Lucky for me I had a sturdier Craftsman adapter in the drawer. Soon enough all the bolts were off and lined up nicely for a photo op -- I mean, ready to get that wheel off. Again, it should be simple. Listen: nothing is simple with me and this Scirocco! Even with the bolts off, the wheel is held onto the rotor very well -- with a thick layer of rust. Fun!
Through the years I've developed a few nice techniques for separating this fusion of metals. The first idea is to tightly hug the wheel with both arms and just pull. If the rust is still light, this can work, but it's a dirty approach and it hurts your back. (Note: light rust doesn't exist on this car; only thick rust.) Kicking the wheel seems reasonable enough. Start at one side and go around either clockwise or counter-clockwise. Kick evenly around the wheel and don't worry about hurting anything on the car. Your foot will break well before you'll do anything to the car, that includes removing the wheel. So while it does take out some frustration while working, it would ultimately behoove you to just skip the kicking. This next method has only ever worked once for me and it required two people to pull it off. But you get to use a sledge hammer! Why would I not tell you to do this?
You'll need two long 2x4 boards and a sledge hammer; a helper will make things easier. Put the end of one of the 2x4s against the wheel from the backside. Prop that same 2x4 with the other board. If you found a willing friend, he'll hold the board in place against the wheel while whack the snot out of the 2x4! After a few smacks, turn the stuck wheel 90 degrees and hit it again. Repeat and rejoice. Your wheel might come off and you're hitting things with a sledge hammer. Win/Win! (Remeber! The car is in the air at this point and you're knocking things around. BE SMART! Pull out a jack stand or two and make sure the car isn't going to come crashing down as you're wildly whacking off!) In the end I used the SCIENCE of CHEMICALS to get my frozen wheels off.
After a liberal application of Liquid Wrench I just let it sit for an hour while I ate. Every so often I came out and hit the hub with hammer to loosen things up and help the spray work it's magic into more little cracks of the rust. Fast forward to "I'm tired of waiting" and again I'm hitting the wheel with a hammer. Not the sledge this time, just a small rubber mallet along the backside edge of the wheel. Going around in circle it finally popped off. Celebration! was short lived when I saw the state of the brake rotor. Its hard to tell in the picture, but the fact that it looked a bit like a record is bad. Those deep circular grooves are not cool. Time to replace that: joy.
But the burning question was this: why was my rotor so messed when I changed the brake pads so recently? Two bolts later and the caliper was off. (The caliper is the part that squeezes the brake pads against the rotor as you press the brake pedal.) At that point I pulled the old pads off for a little inspection. Oh, I guess this explains things pretty well. One of my pads was worn completely down to the metal! There was no pad left it was just metal on metal (hey that's the name of the post!) The problem was either that the caliper was sticking open and not returning when the pedal was released or that the caliper slides weren't doing their job: sliding. The slides make sure that even pressure is applied to the pads. If things are gummed up in the slides all or most of the pressure is applied to one pad over the other and the result is uneven wear to the extreme!
The slides actually were simple to remove, just pull them out and pop the boots off. After I got the driver's side rotor and slides completely taken apart I did the same with the passenger's side. While that side didn't need a new rotor it's always a good idea to replace the brake pads of both sides at the same time. You don't want your car diving to one side or another under hard braking! Anyway, s quick bath in Simple Green with a toothbrush scrub was enough to remove the graphite lubricant from the slide bolts. For the recess that the slide went into, I soaked them in the same Simple Green then scooped out the graphite with q-tips. Easy, now I had squeaky clean slides ready for some new lube.
Lubing the slides was just as involved as it sounds: not at all. So not much to say about that. Installing everything was pretty uneventful as well. Nothing went wrong and with the process of taking things apart you can probably imagine the installation. I'm going to call this job a success. Most everything went as smoothly as I could have hoped for and I now have properly working brakes. I just hope I was right about the problem simply being the gummed up slides. Otherwise I'll be back under the car taking the brakes apart before I want.
An ending note: the fact that brake pads can still be made with asbestos lining should probably bother me. Brake pads SPEW asbestos dust like mad crazy. My hands were covered with the stuff. I had gloves for the most part, but not the entire time. I wonder if I have anything to worry about? The EPA thinks so. Oops, I think I broke some of those Home Mechanic "Don'ts."
Some ending pictures as well. Remember to click to enlarge!
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