I am trying to replace my bloody rotors, but the soft metal screws that hold the rotor to the hub are stripping. I cant get any grip on them, I believe them to be seized. I tried alot of wd40, i tried both flat and phillips head screw drivers, even used a vice grip to get more turning torque, nothing has caused even the slightest budge. Can anyone help?

 

Get a stripped screw removal kit
You put a small conical shaped 'hole' into the screw and the removal bit is reverse threaded... to as you 'lefty loosey' the removal bit actually bites into the screw while the screw itself unscrews.

 

You need an impact screwdriver. It works flawlessly.

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=37530

 

where would i get this?

 

any auto parts store..home depot.. lowes all of those places have them.

 

If already completely stripped then the impact screwdriver probably won't help, then you have to go with the what the first response was.
If there is anything left to grab onto, then the impact is the way to go!
Oh.............and you don't have to put those screws back in, so leave them out.

 

You can also drill them out, the screw is not needed once the car is built.

 

That's true.............you could just drill them out!

 

Yeah, those screws just hold the rotor on while you're putting everything else on... after you get the wheel on the lugnuts hold the rotor on.

 

Walgreen sells it!

 

that's what i did... after banging on them with an impact driver...

 

i dont have an air compressor at my house, so impact anything is out. which sucks because i have a nice 1/2 inch gun sitting around useless from when i was working as a tech. believe me, if i had air i wouldnt be posting this on there. id just blast the hell out of it

 

With the impact screwdriver they are talking about you just bang on the end with a hammer.

 

Drill it out!

 

drill it out thats what i did first OR take a nail and hammer... nail a dot onto the screw head and then use the stick the nail in the dot kinda sideways and hammer it loose it will work i used to work on brake and we did this alll the time

 

anyone know why even when i turn the piston in the rear calipers, they wont go in?

 

Parking Brake cable still attached, you did remove it? Item #1 in the attached .PDF

 

click the link in the previous post. you do not need air. my friend used one on tuesday when he did my brakes. worked real nice. i wish we would have known about the parking brake cable. he had a hell of a time getting the piston back in.

 

great advice so far on here!
just to add to it: you should get a cordless impact gun, I picked up a great Craftsman set last year just before I replaced my rotors.

One of mine was seized up as well so I drilled them out.

 

when rotor holddown screws strip out the best method of removal is to take a drill bit the same size or slightly smaller than the head diameter of the screw and drill it out until the head falls off, the rotor will then come off , you can take some pliers and unthread the remaining stub of the screw from the hub

if you install new screws use anti-sieze on them

 

You don't want to use an impact gun on the screws, you want to use an impact screwdriver. The impact gun will strip it like there is no tomorrow.

This is an impact screw driver:


What it does is that you hammer the end of it and the screw bit will turn.

When you're hammering on the end of it, it creates force, it pushes down into the screw while turning it, that way it won't strip the screw.

 

interesting tool.
My impact gun worked perfectly fine on one of the rotor screws though.

 

This tool saved me a billion times over on seized up screws.

 

That tool is awesome for big screws that you don't want to strip. But the screws are pointless to put back on after you put new rotors back on.

 

Yep, that looks like my impact screwdriver....................saved my @ss a few times!