Front brake rotor hitting the caliper. I NEED HELP! (1 Viewer)

[AJM0913]

Hi, my wife and I were about to get dinner earlier and all of a sudden the front driver side wheel started making some scratchy noise. (92 Land Cruiser). so I pulled over and jack the car up, I notice that my wheel is wobbling but the lug nuts are tight. 3 months ago I had Toyota in Hermiston, OR (200 miles away from home) replace my bearing because it needed to be replaced. so I took the wheel out and found out that I have scrapes on my front brake rotor. took the brake pads out and found out that the rotor is hitting / scratching the caliper because it wobbles. it's like it's loose but it wont come out. I had this serviced 3 months ago. what the heck could be the problem? we have a trip coming this weekend and need this vehicle running before Sunday. It wobbles all around. Please help! I really don't have $400 bucks to take this to the shop.

Thanks in advance

 

[cavanmick]

Its your wheel bearing loose buddy, you will need to at worst get it replaced or at best adjusted.

 

[floridan surfer]

3 months ago I had Toyota in Hermiston, OR (200 miles away from home) replace my bearing because it needed to be replaced. so I took the wheel out and found out that I have scrapes on my front brake rotor. took the brake pads out and found out that the rotor is hitting / scratching the caliper because it wobbles.

And with what you mentioned above, you have every right to be severely pissed off right now.

 

[Atticus]

When you open the hub, you will see that the bearing has come loose. You will also see gouge marks in the locking nut where they used a hammer and screwdriver to tighten the bearing instead of a 54mm socket and a torque wrench. You will also see where the tabs on the star washer are not bent to hold the locking and tightening nut in place. Or there may be no washer at all.

Just my informed guess.

 

[Brentbba]

If your lug nuts are tight and you're grabbing the tire and it wobbles, then the shop f'ed up really bad! It shouldn't do that!! The caliper bolts themselves need to be torqued to 90 ft/lbs (at least on a '94). Where they loose too?

What Atticus said about the 54mm lock nut and star washer sounds like the simple explanation.

 

[AJM0913]

Yeah Toyota in Hermiston, OR did not put my bearings and all the other stuff the right way. It's now at Meineke and will be there til Monday. parts and labor $1160 I'll be rolling on a Ford Focus (Rental car) all weekend.. yeepee!

 

[NLXTACY]

Holy crap! What are they changing?!

 

[LFD2037]

$1,160 is waaaaaay too much for that repair. If its only been a couple months then I'm sure the bearing is fine and only needs to be tightened. Even if it needs to be replaced that only adds $200 to Meinekes bill. Plus, there's probably nobody at Meineke that knows anything about a Toyota solid axle hub. Good luck.

 

[Atticus]

The dealership should repair the vehicle on its own dime.

You can't let Meineke work on your truck. They have no idea what they're doing. They certainly won't know how to preload the wheel bearings.

You are now suffering from a self-inflicted wound. But you will have to redo the wheel bearings very soon if Meineke does the repair.

 

[voorland80]

The dealership should repair the vehicle on its own dime.

You can't let Meineke work on your truck. They have no idea what they're doing. They certainly won't know how to preload the wheel bearings.

You are now suffering from a self-inflicted wound. But you will have to redo the wheel bearings very soon if Meineke does the repair.

If I was picking a team I'd want Atticus on my side...

 

[NLXTACY]

If I was picking a team I'd want Atticus on my side...

You haven't been on mud long enough then

 

[Golgo13]

I'm with everyone else. The dealer should pay for you to flatbed the truck there and back also. They F'ed up big and should be willing to fix their mistake. If Meineke is charging that for just the one side, you're getting ripped off. Get on the phone with the dealer before letting Meineke do any work.

 

[AJM0913]

Well the Toyota dealer that did the first Repair is 200 miles away from where i live. And for $1160, they are doing both sides including new pads and rotors. The mechanic showed me all the broken stuff. I dont know the name of them but there are a lot of messed up stuff. And to be quite honest, those guys seems pretty honest and know what they are doing. I lost a lot of my trust on Toyota mechanics. The first mess up they did is when I had them replaced my alternator. I drove the cruiser home only to find out that the power steering bolts are lose so the belt was flapping around. And they told me that I had the wrong size belt put on!

I live in the apartment so I cannot do all these work anyway. I already get the dirty look when everytime I pop my hood to check my oil and coolant.

 

[slopoke]

When you get a hold of the dealer, make sure they replace your rotor too since it now has gouges in it, the caliper is probably ok, but you could certainly make a case for having that replaced too. There is no doubt that they did not do your bearing job correctly. Replacing the bearing is something you can do pretty easily if you have the tight tools and directions. But who knows what craziness the dealership did on it so you wouldnt know if or what parts you needed before getting in there. If you are interested in doing it yourself, its a 2 banana job. well come to think of it, it might be a but with the right directions, parts and tools, it is pretty easy.
Anyway, I wish I could trust someone to do the job correctly, but unfortunately I have had way too many bad experiences, so I ended up just learning how to do it myself.

Either way you go, good luck with the repair I hope the dealership does the right thing,,

 

[ADHLX]

The mechanic showed me all the broken stuff. I dont know the name of them but there are a lot of messed up stuff.

I live in the apartment so I cannot do all these work anyway. I already get the dirty look when everytime I pop my hood to check my oil and coolant.

Being a dick here, sorry, but you need some reality as well.....

You should think very seriously about selling the vehicle and getting a small economy car that needs little or no work, here's why:

Not even knowing the names of parts, and the overall lack of knowledge and understanding of your vehicle that this demonstrates will lead to nothing but more rip-offs, bad advice, and being taken advantage of by people in the mechanical world. Unless you are related to them or know someone who is, no paid mechanics or dealerships or shops can be trusted. They get paid by the hour and by the number of parts they can get you to buy. They will ALWAYS do things to increase the number of both you pay for. Being ignorant of mechanical "stuff" just enables and encourages these people. (M mom lives far away and once when I was visiting her, I noted that her little Toyota pickup needed oil and filter changed. Being far from home, I took it to a 10-minute oil change place, safe enough as long as you refuse all of the up sells..... Guy came out with a supposed sample of the rear diff oil, pointing out it had bubbles in it, indicating it needed to be replaced..... No s***! I had just driven it about 10 miles, of course he could find bubbles in 90-weight oil that had just been churned up by driving... They count on ignorance by customers to convince them to buy more stuff)

These vehicles are primarily "old tech," meaning new mechanics have little experience or knowledge about them, but since they seem simple, they'll dive ignorantly in. In this case, a particular tool is required, and the boss sure isn't going to go buy it for one job. So, hack work like using a screwdriver and a hammer to attack a large nut is how it gets done. No "modern" cars need to have bearing pre-load set, so these dudes haven't a clue on how or why, let alone the need to put in star washers and to tack them correctly. The big nut WILL loosen over time if it isn't held by a properly installed star washer..... Leading to your situation. MAYBE, just MAYBE, one of the guys at Meinicke knows how to do it, but I doubt it.... These places survive on high-volume, high upsell business models..... They will rush every job to get the next car into the bay...

Second, having no place to work on and learn about a special vehicle like the LC/LX is another ingredient in the recipe for disaster that you have. You COULD learn about and do pretty much everything on your vehicle yourself, but with no place to do it, you are severely handicapped.

Until such time that you can learn and get hands-on experience, you will waste more and more money and get ripped off over and over. Go get a Toyota sedan and a good shop manual and read and learn and get experience.....THEN get a specialized vehicle when you are ready to handle the care and feeding yourself.....

Sounds dickish, but it is meant in a good spirit of helping you avoid more heartache and loss of money at the hands of people who will just keep taking your money and only helping you enough to get you out the door....

MORE/EDIT: Download the shop manual for your truck and at least look at the diagrams and read through the procedures for the front hub. This will at least help you converse intelligently with people who you are having do work.. If you can show that you know and understand some of what is going on, you may get better treatment.....

 

[powermad]

Full floating hubs are hardly "old tech".
Nothing magical or special about them, basically the same no matter if it's a Dodge, Jeep, Chevy, Ford, Toyota, Mack dump truck or a semi trailer.
Spindle, grease/oil seal, inner bearing and race, outer bearing and race, adjusting nut, lock, lock nut., drive plate/lockout/axle flange/hub cover.
The procedure for setting wheel end play is the same no matter who makes it or if it's a front or rear axle.
New unitized hubs are different though, those pop at 850 ftlbs for the inner nut, but I digress.

The only thing different is the hub nut size or shape. Most sockets are around $15 for the correct one.
Dana and GM 14 bolt hub sockets are not cheap though for good ones like the ones I have from Snap-On.
The 54mm OTC one I have was $15.

While adjusting the hubs is relatively easy to do it is also quite easy to screw it all up.

As for the price..
$120 for the seal, bearings, races, hub nut lock set, and rotor. One side
2 hours labor.
50% parts markup, $180 and $490 an hour in labor.

I would have charged $210 for that job, parts and labor and it would have been done in under 2 hours.
I charge $45 an hour and don't mark up parts. In fact I can usually get them cheaper than listed if I go through my shop for parts.

 

[ADHLX]

"Old Tech" in the sense that if one were to open up a full-floating axle and steering knuckle from a truck built in the 1940's (as an example), one would find most of the same parts you list, put together in pretty much the same order as they are on our FJ80s..... Newer vehicle building methods call for fewer parts that are put together in ways that speed assembly and lower manufacturing costs. While I don't know anything specific at all about 100's/200's or other competitive new SUVs, I expect they are much different than the FJ80's, and that "replace instead of repair" is the norm, not to mention a requirement for specialized tools and procedures.... Like you mention with unitized hubs....

 

[downshift13]

This is something definitely doable. I just did mine two days ago. It did tore up my rotors and pad so I had to change that. The only other tool you will need is the 54mm socket to tighten the nuts. Took me the whole Friday afternoon because it was my first attempt at this. Bought the tool from amazon for $17.

 

[Whileemptyheadsdream]

This is all good, helpful, concerned advice. He does not work on his truck. Your waisting your breath, all you will get is an excuse. The wrong decission has been made. Workmanship that would have led to a catastrophic wheel failure has been Ignored, The TOYOTA Dealer is responsible, now the same thing will happen to the next person who has the same work done. We all pay in the long run. A 54mm socket and directions to a qualified mechanic should come with our rigs so we dont have to here this story every week.

 

[Hornd]

They go thru about 2 of these examples on a ~20 yr old truck then they just want to sell it and the handy guys move in and get a steal of a deal. It's not all bad.
These trucks are perfect for guys who like to wrench and appreciate the design and build quality.