How to get a stuck brake rotor off the hub
Brake rotors often get stuck tightly to the vehicle hub due to rust and friction, even when they are not fully seized. This prevents you from removing the old rotor to complete brake service, and standard prying or hammering from behind may not be enough to break it loose.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1Pushing the rotor back in and wire brushing corrosion around the hub lip
- 2Hitting the rotor from behind with a hammer while rotating it
- 3Using an air hammer to create vibrations
- 4Filing down protruding high spots or damage on the hub outer ring
- 5Pinch the soft metal clip together with pliers
- 6Put a flat blade screwdriver in the middle and twist
- 7Flatten the mangled clip with a hammer and screwdriver against the brake shoe before prying
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“Any tips on being these out? Rounded off on the inside to the point of the m8 triple square bit I'm using has wiggle room in it now.”source ↗
“2007 Mazda mazda3 rotor isn’t seized but isn’t coming off. Tried prying and hammering from behind. Anyone got tips for this?”source ↗
“Need advice on how to remove; Got this car at around 200k miles and when I go to replace the breaks, I see a destroyed, reused horseshoe clip. It is such that when I try to use a screwdriver to smack it off, it goes underneath one of the arms that is bent up (pictured on the lower end)”source ↗
Where this came up
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