How long did the tape on the General last?

It fell off sunday morning mostly. :( The dewfall made it totally unable to cope with freeway speeds.

SO I was working on the car today, changing wheels, adjusting suspension, and making it streetable again. Most of all , I was trying to track down the source of that horrible noise that was coming from the left rear during Sunday's auto-x.

I inspected the axle shafts, wheel bearings still have no wobble, nothing rubbing, so I pulled the brake assembly apart, took of the rotor and behold!

It looks as if a big rock got sucked into the space between the dust shield and the rotor, there was no evidence of the rock, but it did manage to break 3 of the crimp points that hold on the dust shield, and it had bent and folded over enough that it was making contact with the rotor. The little rock did enough damage that i had to remove the heat shield entirely. But as best I can tell that was the noise.

I stil lwant to replace all the wheel bearings in the old sled before next season.

Thank god. That sound was awful.

It kinda sounded like rattling sheet metal at low speeds, but I couldn't think of what would sound like that. Didn't even think about the dust shield.

Yeah, I've had rocks get kicked up in there before, so have other people, and it usually clears itself out, but this one did some real damage. Oh well. I could/should have lost those shields ages ago.

Wait, how did you take off the rear dust shield? AFAIK the dust shield and caliper mount are one piece... so taking of the dust shield would mean there's nothing to attach the caliper to! If they come apart, I wanna know how so I can take mine off too!

The "Base" of the dust shield (Caliper Mount) is still intact, it's the part that mounts to the caliper and such, but the flimsy dust shield is crimp-welded to it. A screw driver or deadblow hammer will break those crimps and the dust shield portion comes free with no harm to the Caliper mount.

Well, tin snips work, but the dust shield is a separate piece that's usually retained by a few bolts and goes around the hub. Removing it without removing the hub requires cutting it off, at least on the front (I'm not running dust shields on my Stoptechs) but I'm not sure about the 2-pot setup.

Edit: Beaten by El Matador.

That's usually the case :P :lol:

That's true on the fronts, they can be unbolted. The rears on the STi are a single piece that apparently can be Ford-Tool'd apart. :lol:

Honestly, what can't be Ford-tooled apart?

A Ferrari V12 motor... 'cause I'd kill you for desecrating a masterpiece. :mad:

Remember, I'm the original "special needs" mechanic. Ford toolin is easy for me.... :lol:

But then I could defend myself with said tool.

Counterpoint?

That happened to me today! Such a heinous sound.

Looks like results for the final event and season are up at Renoscca.com, click on the "results" tab.

Man no props for the trouble shooting on the phone?!! dam I see how it is!!

Props dude, I couldn't have done it without you :p

Thanks man!! sorry Im needy!