Started hearing a terrible grinding noise from the drivers front wheel. Kinda sounded like the squeal tabs on brakes so I went and bought some ceramic pads from Autozone. Got home, removed the wheel, and quickly realized just how gouged my rotor is

Bearings are fresh and tight, upper & lower ball joints are solid, steering rack/tie rods are brand new, so what could it be you may ask?? The damn c-clip popped off the axle shaft which allowed the rotor to move in and out over every bump, which caused the pad to scrape my rotor at weird angles. The clip was just hanging out in the dust cover. Threaded a bolt into the axle, pulled it outward as far as I could to slip the clip back on, ‘resurfaced’ the rotors as best as I could by sanding and scuffing to make it driveable in the meantime, and threw in the new pads. I have two new rotors and larger c-clips on order. I’m really glad I caught this because it could’ve been a catastrophic failure! It also solved the ‘clunk’ that I assumed was worn splines in the hub flange.
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