Rust on rotors on a car sitting for 4-months

Options:

1 - Replace the rotors with shiny new ones.

2 - Pull the wheels, and spin the rotors while scrubbing both sides with sandpaper, emery cloth, or a rotary wire brush on a drill.

3 - Drive it around the block a few times, braking carefully (ignore the noise) until the surface rust is scrubbed off by the pads.

Unless the rust is ungodly - as in huge amounts of pitting, etc that would be likely to cause problems, or the pads have "rotted out" or bound to the rotor - it's essentially meaningless. Even without any special "preparation", the first time you step on the brakes for a "serious" stop, the pads will scour the rotors damn near, if not totally, "fresh from the factory clean and shiny".

Assuming it was my car and the tranny was replaced, I'd "cure" the rusty brake problem by simply taking a couple careful trips around the block while riding the brake lightly. After the first 50-100 feet of that, chances are good that you wouldn't be able to tell there was ever any rust on the rotors to begin with - unless enough of the rust-dust that gets rubbed off settles on the wheels to be visible.

MasterBlaster > My transmission died and I'm still debating replacing it with a used

Drive it around the block a few times, braking carefully (ignore the

Without a transmission? How?

Uhm... Hello? Read much?

Which part of "...after I have the transmission replaced..." is unclear? Or are you just picking nits that even a low-grade moron would ignore so that you have an excuse to post something?

Unless the rotors are seriously pitted, cracked, etc they will probably clean up after the pads are applied a few times. The 100% CYA advice is to fix and replace everything, but it is normally not needed. Just be careful until you find out exactly what the condition is.

If the car were mine, I would be more concerned about rust on the calipers and/or brake lines. Calipers will often stick due to rust that welds mating surfaces together and brake lines often rust out at the lowest point in the line where small amounts of water tends to settle out of the fluid. While you're starting the engine once in a month it is a good idea to pump the brakes to stir up the brake fluid and keep the calipers from freezing up.

-jim

Normal for the rotors to rust. Best solution is to replace them with new rotors AND replace the pads, if they are semi-metallics they have also started to rust. Replacement rotors and pads are MUCH cheaper than the body-work and hospital bills!!

BUT you could just pull them and have them cut enough to clean up and true the surfaces.

Or just step on the brakes a couple times to clean off the rust.

techman41973 wrote in news:1a40fc83-3eba-4687- snipped-for-privacy@2g2000prl.googlegroups.com:

Stored indoors or outdoors? Where do you live?

If your traces are accurate, you're in California, somewhere near San Francisco. Unless you're right on the Bay, I can't see your rust being much more than a very thin skin after 4 just months, even stored outside.

How much rust? Good, clear pictures really help.

Yes it is, especially if regularly exposed to rain and snow. Or salt fog.

Depends on just how much rust there is. Got a pic?

I agree with this one. My Supra sits for 6 months, and my Subaru sits for

6 months (of course, the Supra is in a heated garage...)

I just drive 'em. The rust comes off in the first few miles, and if it doesn't it means a caliper on theat wheel isn't functioning.

My Scion collects rust just sitting for a week!

Hey! lift the car 1 tire at a time, remove the rotors soak them in white vi niger for a few hours a piece. this will not only remove the rust from the break pad contact surface but it will also loosen if not remove all the rus t from the holes around the edges. after this measure the rotors in mm to s ee if they match or are close to matching stock rotor specs. if you get a n ice shiny rotor with no pitting in the metal or cracks. even hair pin crack s are no good! then you are ok to re install. The viniger chemically re-bon ds "fuses" the surface layers of atoms in the steel. at the same time boils all the oxidation of the surface layers.

snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:

its been 8 years, I think he has figgured it out by now. KB