Brake dust shield/guard removal

Hello everyone,

I feel a chump asking what is probably a very simple question, but while doing work on my front brakes I've noticed that my front brake shields/guards are rotten through. Plus, with my car being track-based only, I see no reason to have them. Therefore, I want to remove them both! From the exploded diagram below:



The piece I want to remove is labelled as 4 (baffle plate). Since my wheel bearings seem OK, I don't really want to pull the hub (part 9) from the knuckle (part 3), so I'm unsure of the easiest way to remove this rotten piece of tin??? Can it even be removed from the knuckle??? Many pictures I've seen (for, e.g., fitting bigger brakes) have the shield trimmed down, but I don't really fancy the potentially sharp edges, so would rather do the job properly. Since I do not care about the shield (and it's rotten anyway!), I'm happy to destroy it during the removal process   Note that my knuckle is still on the car................

Any advice????

Many thanks!
Dave

Sharp small chisel or  dremel multi will let you get right in to cut tight on so no sharp bits and won't be seen. If you do ever need bearings to be the small disc then

Ask anything it's only daft when you know the answer mate. Forums here to help

Thanks a lot for the info! I'll try the chisel approach to see if I can separate it a little from the knuckle, then use a Dremel to cut it completely off. Hopefully this should do the trick!

Many thanks!
Dave

If you cut in try knocking it round rather than face on if that makes sense

I used the chisel method aswell worked fine after some really decent hits. They can become quite rusted on the knuckle.

I cut through it with the Dremel at the narrow part then used brute force and a bit of twisting and they came off with no issues.

Perfect guys! I'll give it a go this weekend and see how I get on

Many thanks for your help!
Dave

Thanks for the help guys! Got them off this weekend!    





Cheers!
Dave

Good stuff, didn't end up being very difficult?

gtir_woody wrote:Good stuff, didn't end up being very difficult?

It was easier than I thought it would be. I first wedged a thin screwdriver in between the shield and the knuckle (i.e., from the strut bottom outwards), then tapped on this gently with a hammer so the thin shield metal lifted a little away from the knuckle. Once I'd done this I could actually rotate the shield on the knuckle, but thankfully the slight lifting of the shield away from the knuckle allowed me to line up a meaty chisel without worrying about scraping/damaging the knuckle itself. Then, after about 5 heavy hits on the chisel, the thin shield metal broke cleanly through. Then it was just a case of wrestling it past the hub and putting it straight into the garbage!

Thanks!
Dave

Should of welded and powder coated them might be worth a fortune in a couple year as people restore them lol. Good job done mate

johnny gtir wrote:Should of welded and powder coated them might be worth a fortune in a couple year as people restore them lol. Good job done mate

No Mr horder its time for the bin for that.