1985 300SD rotor removal

You have to use an acetylene torch to heat up where the rotor sits on the axle, don't concentrate the heat to long in any one spot.

Alan

The cup-like portion is a dust cover that keeps dust, dirt and water out of the wheel bearings. For your particular car, I'm not certain if the cap has to be removed to remove the rotor, or if you can remove the two as a single unit and then tap the cap out from the backside using a hammer and short length of broom handle or something similar.

I agree that carefully heating the area with a torch and repeatedly tapping it with a mallet will probably break the rotors free.

"I agree that carefully heating the area with a torch and repeatedly tapping it with a mallet will probably break the rotors free. "

I doubt a rubber mallet is going to do much to get a stuck rotor off. The ones I've had a problem with have always yielded to a hammer.

I should have been more specific in my post. In my mind, I was picturing a leather-faced or hard plastic mallet, which is what I use. A rubber mallet will probably have too much recoil to "shock" the parts loose. I try to save metal hammers for the last resort on this kind of job, because I've seen cast-iron rotors chip or crack from misplaced hammer blows.

Why not just adjust the emergency brake pads from the back side?That's what is causing it to bind preventing easy removal because there is a lip on the inside of the rotor.