Hello, I'm new here and hope you can help me. What was supposed to be a simple brake job turned into hundreds of dollars in work. My son and I are fixing my F350. We had it checked over and was told it needed front brakes. We replaced the calipers and the brake pads but something was wrong. The brake pads wouldn't let go when applied. We discovered that the rotors needed turning and were slightly warped. The company we used said that we would have to replace the rotors too. We got the new rotors and new brake lines in but something was still off. The rotors thunked and made a grinding sound. Yesterday I went and got new seals (again) and new inner and outer wheel bearings. Thunking and some of the grinding sounds is gone. Now I'm getting a scraping sound and metal shavings from the brake dust shield. I've taken it off and reinstalled the rotors and no scraping sound.

I've been searching all of the local parts shops and checked rockauto but can't find the part. I did find the left one of ebay for $60 but couldn't find the right one. My question is temporarily can I run the truck without the dust shield in place while I locate the parts and get them in? All the information I have found so far seems that it's a personal choice to leave them on or not. Since I will eventually (not for another year or so) be hauling my 29' 5th wheel I want to make sure it's capable of it without harming anything especially the brakes.

For now most of the driving I do is some driving 15 minutes to town, minor lumber hauling while rebuilding the old horse stalls, and trips to the vet for my dog as needed. The truck is a 96 Ford F350 XLT 2wd dually 7.5 V8.

I would appreciate any help you can give me with this. I need the truck to drive because my other one is being used by my daughter since her car broke down so this truck is currently my only transportation. Thank you

 

You can drive it some without the dust shield.
Just more water and dirt sprays up there is all.

 

Yes it fine to drive.

 

Thank you very much. I took the dust shields off and put the rotors back on yesterday. Without the shields they turn nice and quiet. With the old rotors being warped could that have warped the area the rotor sits in? I'm trying to figure out why I had so much trouble. We are now waiting for our inch-pound torque wrench to come in so we can set the wheel bearings like we were instructed to do. We've done a lot of our own work but never the rotor and wheel bearing. My brother and uncle used to take care of that part for me. Going off what we were instructed to do I'm supposed to torque the bearing nut to 30 in/lb torque. Let off 2 full rounds. Re-torque to 25 in/lb and let off 180 degrees then re-torque to 18-20 in/lb torque where it should be finished. Then loosen the nut so that the rotor turns 1 full circle when spun. Does that sound about right? After that is there anything I should do to ensure that everything is working properly together? Usually I just drive like normal and carefully stop at stop signs for the first few days after getting the job finished. Thank you again.

 

I would have pulled the shield away far enough from the rotor so that it was no longer making noise and been done with it.

 

Thank you My4Fordtrucks. The main part of the shield we did try that but it was the little lip that went around the rotor inner wheel bearing part. No matter how much I tried to adjust it I couldn't get it to round out better. That's when I took it off and tried the rotor without it. I'll keep looking for the part and in the mean time I'll keep fiddling with the ones I have. Maybe I can get it figured out.