Max Headroom 2.3m
14th March 2022, 09:13 PM
Replacing the rear disc brake rotors on my son’s 2003 Defender 90 TD5 looked to be pretty straight forward (RAVE covers it, plenty of forum threads and YouTubes etc.) ……until I got the rear hub off and discovered the disc rotor bolts that hold it to the hub are covered by the ABS Pulsar Ring. This doesn’t even crack a mention in RAVE and I was only able to find one US forum thread (https://landroverforums.com/forum/discovery-i-39/cant-remove-stuck-abs-reluctor-sensor-ring-brake-disc-85304/) on it. No YouTubes cover it either.
The ABS Pulsar Ring is bolted to the rotor by five 10mm AF nyloc nuts located between the outside mounting face of the rotor and the rear face of the wheel hub (sorry, forgot to take a before photo). These nuts were SERIOUSLY tight and I could see this going horribly wrong quickly with either sheared off studs or the pulsar ring rusting stuck inside the rotor. A casual glance at the web revealed that these things are eye-wateringly expensive to replace should things go south…..about $700 each plus another couple of hundred for shipping! The M6 studs are unobtanium and even good fastener suppliers have trouble getting them and only in box quantities. The nuts are of course not your run of the mill M6 nyloc but a Class 8 heavy nyloc Din 982 (8mm high) and not stocked by any Land Rover parts supplier I could find. I did eventually find one specialist fastener supplier here in WA for the nuts.
So after gentle heating (nylocs!), then soaking in penetrating oil and gritting teeth, I pressed on tapping the spanner with a hammer in a not so gentle fashion. For once the Land Rover gods were on my side [bigsmile][bigsmile][bigsmile]. All the nuts came off OK except for two where the studs came undone instead and the ABS pulsar ring eventually budged after refitting the nuts on loose and levering up on them with a large screwdriver. Problem now is removing the nuts from the two studs that came out. Can’t use the two nut method as there isn’t enough thread on the other end of the stud so going to have to melt the beggars or cut and split. Either way I am now going to replace all the nylocs given what they have been through.
177625177626177627
My question is how to re-fit the ABS Pulsar ring given the complete lack of info:
What preventative steps should be taken to avoid the pulsar ring and nuts rusting in place for next time (anti-seize on the ring face and protruding stud threads? Even with nylocs??)
What torque to use to re-fit the two M6 studs – these would need to be tighter than the M6 nyloc nuts (use Loctite 262 stud locker ? There is, however, no evidence of any Loctite product on the studs that came out. It also concerns me that if a stud shears off in future that has been put in with Loctite 262, it will be even harder to remove).
Do the M6 nylocs have to be that stupidly tight or just firm. Torque values are pointless – can’t get in there without a torque extender (don’t have)
Apologies for the long post. Any advice or experience greatly appreciated.
The ABS Pulsar Ring is bolted to the rotor by five 10mm AF nyloc nuts located between the outside mounting face of the rotor and the rear face of the wheel hub (sorry, forgot to take a before photo). These nuts were SERIOUSLY tight and I could see this going horribly wrong quickly with either sheared off studs or the pulsar ring rusting stuck inside the rotor. A casual glance at the web revealed that these things are eye-wateringly expensive to replace should things go south…..about $700 each plus another couple of hundred for shipping! The M6 studs are unobtanium and even good fastener suppliers have trouble getting them and only in box quantities. The nuts are of course not your run of the mill M6 nyloc but a Class 8 heavy nyloc Din 982 (8mm high) and not stocked by any Land Rover parts supplier I could find. I did eventually find one specialist fastener supplier here in WA for the nuts.
So after gentle heating (nylocs!), then soaking in penetrating oil and gritting teeth, I pressed on tapping the spanner with a hammer in a not so gentle fashion. For once the Land Rover gods were on my side [bigsmile][bigsmile][bigsmile]. All the nuts came off OK except for two where the studs came undone instead and the ABS pulsar ring eventually budged after refitting the nuts on loose and levering up on them with a large screwdriver. Problem now is removing the nuts from the two studs that came out. Can’t use the two nut method as there isn’t enough thread on the other end of the stud so going to have to melt the beggars or cut and split. Either way I am now going to replace all the nylocs given what they have been through.
177625177626177627
My question is how to re-fit the ABS Pulsar ring given the complete lack of info:
What preventative steps should be taken to avoid the pulsar ring and nuts rusting in place for next time (anti-seize on the ring face and protruding stud threads? Even with nylocs??)
What torque to use to re-fit the two M6 studs – these would need to be tighter than the M6 nyloc nuts (use Loctite 262 stud locker ? There is, however, no evidence of any Loctite product on the studs that came out. It also concerns me that if a stud shears off in future that has been put in with Loctite 262, it will be even harder to remove).
Do the M6 nylocs have to be that stupidly tight or just firm. Torque values are pointless – can’t get in there without a torque extender (don’t have)
Apologies for the long post. Any advice or experience greatly appreciated.