When the brake caliper mounting bracket bolts are tightened to the hub (on the passenger side only!), the new rotor binds against the bottom of the bracket on the outside (away from the center of the vehicle) and the wheel cannot rotate freely.
My vehicle is a 1999 Nissan Maxima and I purchased Centric rotors (Amazon claims that these rotors fit).
This image is not from my vehicle, but the part is prominently displayed.
The very odd thing is that the driver's side has no problem. I switched the rotor from the driver's side to the passenger's side and the problem persists.
Both new rotors are approximately 26mm thick; it appears that 3mm of rotor surface need to be removed for the part to fit on the passenger side. Minimum safe rotor thickness (per... the internet) is 20mm for the 99 Maxima.
What should I do?
- Get 3mm of braking surface turned off the new rotor?
- Return the rotors to Amazon and attempt to find thinner rotors?
- Purchase a new, third party mounting bracket and see if it has a wider interior space?
What could account for this difference of alignment in the bracket? Is this intentionally manufactured as such? Perhaps the bracket has been replaced in the past?
The rotor, pinned to the side of the bracket (bought a new bracket, no joy):
Backside of the rotor (a little fuzzy) - note the clearance on the bottom:
Top of the rotor - no problems:
Answer: I can only assume that something is wrong with the hub as the brand new rotor has a wobble in the spin when placed on the passenger side. The vehicle does not drive problematically at this time with the new pads / rotors installed and so I will leave it. If I follow up on this problem in the future I will add more to the post.
Edit: As it turns out the hubs on my vehicle are press-fit into the knuckle. This means that either something skewed the hub during its lifetime or it was not pressed in correctly to begin with.