Wobblin-Goblin

Not one shop in the area could turn the rotors, which still had a fair amount of life in them. I wanted to re-use them, but instead had to buy new. Bought "premium" rotors from CARQUEST (made in China, of course) for $45 per.

I had a bugger of a time getting the old rotors off. With the exhaust brake, who knows how long it had been since the last time the brakes were serviced or rotors taken off the truck...if ever. The pads had about 75% of material still on them. I've only had the truck for a year and my dad had it for four years before that and this is the first time the brakes were serviced by us. It might have been as many as ten years or more since they were previously done (again, the exhaust brake drastically cuts down on the wear). Almost every single surface was rusted and dry (no lube/neverseize). Now all the surfaces are scraped, sanded, Dremeled with a wire brush, and coated with neverseize.

So, now it's got new front rotors and pads and a new passenger side caliper. Love the braking power and feel now, although it's a little surprising how small the rotors and especially the pads are. Much smaller than my Super Duty's brakes. Of course, my 7.3L doesn't have an exhaust brake, though.

SIXSLUG

Nice job! Ford has always had the best brakes, I think. there used to be a conversion kit out there to replace the dodge brakes on the dana 60 front axle with Ford brakes.

Dad's 94 has really weak brakes compared to my 01! I plan to convert to the 3rd gen rotors and calipers after I get my wheels back from him.

Nobody around here turns rotors either anymore...it's a sad state when the repair shops can't do any basics...

torquefan

I've found on the 94-99 4x4 trucks, the best way to get the rotors straight and true is to use an on-car lathe. You can go to all the trouble to remove the rotor/hub/bearing assembly and mount it on a bench lathe, but the splined hole through the center of the hub isn't always perfectly centered, so the lathe operator will have to be aware of this and spent a great deal of effort to ensure the assembly is mounted true on the lathe.

Wobblin-Goblin

The '01s have bigger rotors and/or pads?

Wobblin-Goblin

The old rotors are sitting in my garage now, so it's a moot point. Given how everything was rusted together, taking everything off was probably the better choice. It gave me an opportunity to really clean all the surfaces up (and grease the fittings in the U-joints of the front axle.

SIXSLUG

They slowly improved them thru the years, mine are dual piston calipers and have a good sized pad. Dad's are single piston and kind of wimpy compared to mine.

The 03's and up have even larger calipers and pads and rotors, thus requiring a 17" min wheel diameter.

joem

the pervious owner (my friend) put auto store china made rotors on my 1995- huge pain in the butt with pounding out the studs and such. They both warped in a few weeks of heavy hauling to the point that the visors fell down when braking. I cleaned all sliding parts well, bled the system and put EBC slotted rotors and pads on, never had a issue since and iv had them glowing red several times on heavy hauling+17% hill+ hatachi EX60 15,000 pounds.
Still working perfect to this day

infidel

Sounds like an exhaust brake would be a good investment.
I've found Brembo rotors to work great on my haulers.