best recommended tool for?

Check the rotor parallelism (thickness variation); it must vary less than

I'm looking for a decent tool to do that as well

also, I looked at my friends rotors and one of them has really small grooves (not deep ones) in it. I'm thinking about having them resurfaced -or- just getting 2 new ones since they're not that expensive.

thanks

a dial caliper that reads in mm ?

or a micrometer and a calculator ?

To check for rotor parallelism, an out-of-round dial gauge comes to mind (works with the rotor spinning).

best recommended tool for?

Group: alt.trucks.chevy Date: Sat, Jun 4, 2005, 4:58pm (CDT-1) From: snipped-for-privacy@nospam.charter (Anon) What's the best recommended tool for measuring the thickness of pads/linings/rotors to the nearest 1/10th of a mm . Thinking I need

A Metric Micrometer comes to mind..I can understand the rotor part but you dont need this for pads....What are you trying to do?

S Cook

Proud member of the Idiot Redneck Assoc... May not be to smart but I sure as Hell can fix it...

A Metric Micrometer comes to mind..I can understand the rotor part but you dont need this for pads....What are you trying to do?

Thanks for the tip. I'll get one. I was just trying to measure the thickness of the pads to the nearest .10 of a mm to make sure the pads were within specification. I checked the pads and they "visually" looked thick enough (I compared the thickness to brand new pads and they looked fine. Need to do the shoes though.

You could use a micrometer....but you would be wasting your money if you are just doing brake jobs occasionally. You can buy a simple tire tread depth guage and use that measure your shoes/pads....much more cost effective. If you want to measure your rotors, take them off and take it to a place that will machine them, they will measure them before they machine them to see if they meet the min thickness spec.

You don't need a tool to measure this. Thickness variation is what will cause the brakes to pulsate when you are braking. If you do not feel pulsation when you are braking, then the thickness variation is not worth worrying about. If you do feel pulsation thru the brake pedal, you have excessive thickness variation...no need to measure it.

Grooves are not as important as the runout of the brake rotor. But....if you are replacing pads....it's always a good idea to get the rotor surfaces machined and have the runout checked after the rotor is re-installed on the vehicle.

Ian