Spectacular rear brake rotor near-failure

Arthur McDonald · **Joined:** Fri Aug 29, 2003 1:54 am **Posts:** 2052

MikeWhitney wrote:

Edit - pic #3 might be misleading. This is the inside of the parking brake surface -- not the actual rotor brake surface. One of the cracks appeared to start there.

Clearly, you need to cut out using the handbrake in tight turns

I picked up a huge braking vibration during a school at Mid-Ohio. Upon inspection, I found that one of the front rotors had a large radial through the inner face of the rotor. Swapped in a spare, went back on track, and viola, the vibration was just as bad. The other front rotor was badly warped, and the broken rotor wasn't causing any (detectable) vibration.

Is there any kind of ducting feeding cold air to the rear brakes? Perhaps they're getting hit by too cold an air stream.

Arthur McDonald · **Joined:** Fri Aug 29, 2003 1:54 am **Posts:** 2052

DickRasmussen wrote:

Mike,

You need to work on your cutting technique . . . :lol:

http://groups.msn.com/SVTCobraR/bremborotorfailure.msnw

As you can see these are old pics (2001)

I could not find any detailed posts from a couple of years ago when this issue surfaced again. I don't know if a solid cause was determined or publicized.

Good grief. Was that rotor manufactured with the V-shaped indention between the rotor face and the rotor hat? Looks like the rotor is only 3/16's thick where the hat and the disk WERE joined, and that's just nuts.

Let me take this opportunity to alert everybody to the evils of rear disk brakes, and worse yet, independent rear suspensions. This kind of problem would never happen with a proper solid rear axle equipped with drum brakes!

MikeWhitney · **Joined:** Wed Aug 20, 2003 9:15 pm **Posts:** 4724

Adam Ligon wrote:

Also what about caliper guides?

Worn, sticking, non lubricated guides can cause draggin issues which wold generate heat, etc. Just another idea

Everything was in really good shape. I had just rebuilt the calipers, sandblasted the carriers, and used good disc brake lube on all the moving parts and every spot where there was sliding contact. The lube was a little gummy on the sliders but still functional.

Also the color doesn't indicate any excessive heat except inside the parking brake area right where the crack opened up and probably started dragging.

Again I'll mention that I never felt ANY vibration -- I'm pretty sensitive to that kind of thing!

BretLuter · **Posted:** Tue Feb 12, 2008 11:37 am

MikeWhitney wrote:

Again I'll mention that I never felt ANY vibration -- I'm pretty sensitive to that kind of thing!

........nevermind...........someone else please take this and run with it...

:shock:

Aaron Topal · **Posted:** Fri May 02, 2008 2:24 am

Mike, has the company responded to your e-mail I am curious to hear what they had to say about such a total failure.

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Spectacular rear brake rotor near-failure

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