left hand drill bits and brake rotor screw size

[92EcoDiesel Jetta]

i like those screws, and shinny too; that pic of your rotor looks like sh*t, ive never had a rotor look that bad, its been sitting around for a while or something else is wrong for it to look like that, brake area should be bare metal, some rust will get wiped away when you brake, too much and you will ,i guess, get bad wear patterns, or chew up pads.......................

The close up pic of the crack can be misleading if you did not catch post #19 above where I said: "This crack is between 2 lug bolt. "


My new rotors are here and will try do the job today. This crack was very hard to see. I could have easily missed it. First time I noticed it, it appeared to be a faint outline of a crack under a lot of rust. I wire brushed and scraped the rust away and ran a razor blade through it before it looked like a definite crack. The crack appears to have been there for a long time and not getting any larger. I actually kept driving the car since its discovery.

Pic of crack zoomed out

[air-cooled or diesel]

was commenting on all that rusty-gunk you had built up on brake surface of rotor, the crack in the 1st pic looked like it ran up on the rotor; this pic you can take a shot at fixing that crack; although you said you had new rotors coming, id 'slap' new set on. (new pads of course, id also change out fluid, and prob svc rear brakes), i liked semi-metallic pads, some people have a problem with dust, used to get them from repco(?sp?). if on the rotor you for some odd reason want to fix, or use as practice, the only thing you need to find is both ends of your crack, after drilling welding is an added +, id spot 2 or 3 welds of about an inch. hard enough to get away with an entire length of metal welded, any size, the industry uses a lot of complete welding; thats a lot of heat going in there. and the one job i had guys would turn their mig welders all the way up having good voltage for wire speeds at 10, hothothot.

[92EcoDiesel Jetta]

The keft hand drills didn't do it's job. It was my first time trying them to extract broken screws. With penetrating oil and 3 successsive increasing size drills, the screws did not back out. I should have known better there is not much chance for a screw that's been rusted in place for at least 5 years that heat is the only hope. I had to drill out the screw almost completely then ran a tap through it to cut new threads. I was very careful to drill on center and both sides came out good.

[92EcoDiesel Jetta]

New Zimmerman rotors made in Germany from FCPEuro, new anti rattle spring clips from Raybestos, new pads (free lifetime replacements) from Autozone.

[92EcoDiesel Jetta]

Always hate all the rust that comes off the rotors so I painted these inside out. Let's see how well it keeps the rust away.

[92EcoDiesel Jetta]

was commenting on all that rusty-gunk you had built up on brake surface of rotor, ...........

AGAIN, THE RUST IS NOT ON THE BRAKE SURFACE OF ROTOR!!!

[92EcoDiesel Jetta]

None of the VW CV bolts are Torx.  They are all either allen or triple-square.

You are right! For CV and head bolts, VW has changed to the better triple square aka XZN fasteners, which have similar tooth design as Torx but with 2x the number of points (12 vs 6) for less chance of cam out (stripping).

[92EcoDiesel Jetta]

The new rotors and pads are doing great! They feel a little smoother when stopping. This is the first time ever for me replacing rotors with new, and I've had many cars with high mileage.


I took a closer look at the cracked rotor. The crack did not carry over to the other side so it is a surface crack only. I think the cause of the crack must be not having the broken rotor screw stud (which protruded slightly) lined up with the rotor screw hole during wheel install. I was always careful to line them up but can't say for sure if others who worked on the car before me did the same. The other rotor with a broken screw was flush and do not have cracks.