After a couple of weeks of fits and starts, I focused on the front brakes of the Scout Saturday morning. I’ve been held up to date by incorrect or missing directions on how to disassemble the locking hubs on the front axle, the roemoval of which is required for getting the rotor assembly off the truck. All of the various service manuals talk about a particular snap ring that needs to come out before pulling the hub assembly out (at the risk of dropping a handful of roller bearings all over the driveway, a terrifying thought) but I could not identify or find this snap ring anywhere. Finally, I decided to chance it and gingerly pulled the hub assembly off—and found that there was no snap ring and that the inner gears came off with the outer assembly.
With this out of the way, it was easy to remove the caliper, pull the rotor/hub assembly off, and pounded the studs out from the back side of the old rotors. With a hammer and socket extension I pounded the studs into the new rotor assembly, and put everything back on the truck. The driver’s side went just as easily, although the locking hub mechanism there didn’t have the same washer/snapring holding the gears to the outer assembly. Looking it over, I don’t think that makes a difference, so I put it back the way I found it (it’s worked just fine for 17 years) and buttoned up the wheels.
Out on the road, the brakes feel very good: they’re even and don’t immediately pull to the left side, which is a huge improvement. There’s a noticable difference in the pedal feel—before, the brakes were very close to the top of the pedal, where now there’s more throw before they engage—but I like that. It’s going to take a little getting used to, but I’m really happy I tackled this and did it myself.
In other news, I posted four new designs to the Threadless store. I’ve been sitting on the two Scout 800 designs for a year or more, for reasons I can’t remember. The Slowflake design is in honor of Brian’s Scout project, and the Dugan’s Beer bottlecap is for myself. I’m noodling with some new ideas for Slowflake after the EV conversion, at which time I’ll create another design.