The front brake dust shields for my 1995 truck seem to be discontinued. YouTubers just say run without them. Opinions, please.
Run without them.
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No dust shields on the other side of the rotor and it still drives, sooo remove them… lol
Good ideas above. If you really would rather have the shield installed, you might be able to find a set on the used parts market. Take a look at the LKQ salvage parts website. If I had this problem myself I’d probably just rinse both sides of the rotors off with a garden hose once in a while.
The manufacturer doesn’t include any parts that aren’t needed. However, some parts are there to mitigate worst case scenarios. There are almost as many use cases as there are owners. You can look at the reason for having a dust shield in the first place to decide if your use case dictates having one.
In no particular order-
First reason is to reduce abrasive particulates from polluting the pad to rotor interface. Yes, the outer surface of the disc is exposed but the back is protected. Why? Likely the backside is subject to different conditions than the front that may exacerbate dust/dirt collection. The accumulation of dust/dirt/etc causes more rapid wear of the pad and rotor. How fast depends on the type of foreign material being accumulated.
The second reason they are installed is as a heat shield to protect nearby suspension and other susceptible parts from excessive heat coming from the rotor. Is your driving style and or conditions likely to result in very hot rotors?
The third reason is to reduce incidence of water/snow/slush splash onto the rotor surface that may cause the pads to float and reduce braking effectiveness.
So weigh those against your use case for the vehicle and tolerance for risk. If I had a bomb around use for mine, I might be inclined to forego the shields. Driving in rain or puddles, I would be more cautious about potential for reduced braking. If I had a more rigorous use case and could not find anything available, I might just fabricate my own out of galvanized sheet metal available at any home store. They don’t need to be as fancy as the originals… YMMV as they say…
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And, some cars have the shields sandwiched by the wheel bearing/hub assy to knuckle. Which is a pain to remove in salty/rust belt areas. Are you changing wheel bearings soon?
Twin Turbo makes some valid points, I would not remove them just to remove them, and if they rotted out and fallen off then go ahead and remove them, if you can find replacements it would better to replace them but if not available then it is not the end of the world… And I don’t know if I would tear the brakes all the way down (especially on a bearing rotor) too replace the the dust shields until it was time to replace the brakes or do wheel bearing maintenance…
Or on a vehicle with pressed bearings…
My “symptom” was the sudden onset of a horrible screeching noise, due to the rusty shield with a big crease. The noise was too big to just be the telltales. The shield was too rusty to reuse.
My biggest concern is getting too much water thrown against the rotor from the opposite wheel. But the 1996 age also means I don’t typically drive far or fast, so I will just be aware of the suggestions made here. Thanks for the good advice.
I got a 3 yr old gm car with no heat shields. And I know it should have had them. I was ok though. I lived thru it.