rusted 'new' rotor after long term storage
 

Well I was digging through storage on the weekend and came across my now old new set of both rear and front brake rotors, picked up the box and the disk fell out and noticed that the cardboard had fused to the surface of the disk and it was rusty too….so I got to work on cleaning it, let it soak in water so I could scrape of the cardboard, and then my next concern was the rust as this had build up at least 1 -2mm…used wet and dry in a circular motion until I got it flat as possible….to touch you cannot feel any unevenness on the surface but when running wet and dry around the surface you get a different sound on the part of the disk that was most corroded leaving me to believe it is grooved? And if I stick on the rotor the same will happened when the pads grind over the disk I guess?


Question is will I have major issues here wobbly steering etc or judder on breaking or will the pads bed in and also wear down the rotor either way…..we are talking about the front end rotor here that does most of the stopping I guess as they are twice as thick at the rears …..but have stored em on their side now, and oiled em well…..

Probably not a bad idea just to take them for a light skim (machine). They only take off enough material to ensure they run true, so you will kill two birds with one stone.

clean the rotor with brake cleaner and put it on the car, the first few stops will brush any material off the surface trust me

1-2mm of rust is quite a bit on a rotor to take off. If you had to take that much off by hand it's unlikely the rotor would be true afterwards.

When you get the different "sound" does it feel like it grabs any more/less than the rest of the disc? If it does you may get uneven compound transfer to the disc and subsequently a wobble when you brake. You can put them on the vehicle and see what happens, but you may end up having to get them refinished and/or cut.

ta for replies, Nope no more resistance than the rest of the disk, but am pretty sure about 1-2mm was rust build up say on about 1/3 of the disk on one side only....and left lines in the surface as an analogue clocks hands , so from the inside to outer edge...would have no problem getting it skimmed but doubt anyone out here even knows how to do this.....may have to resort to go to some metal working setup and ask them if they can basically grind off i would say no more than 1mm and make sure done so in an even fashion.....