I hope this isn't too far from the list charter...there seems to be
a widely varied collective of experience here though.
I bought a '90 E250 van for racing (motorcycles, not racing the van!).
The front brake rotors were shot so I bought new ones. On the new ones,
there is a 1/6" high protrusion in the center, about an inch smaller than the
diameter of the lug nut circle, that the rim is supposed to
slip over and rest on. Problem is, the I.D. of the rim is about 1/16"
smaller than the O.D. of this pilot protrusion. On the old rotors
there was about 1/8" gap so the rim didn't even use this as a load
bearing surface, it seemed to add a trivial amount of support for
the hub and outer wheel bearing, or maybe it's just the changeover
from machined surface, where the rim sits flush, to unmachined cast
surface.
I called Federal-Mogul/Wagner, and they said this is the right one and
have had no fitment complaints. The previous owner of the van said
he never swapped rims, and they are Ford steel rims. The parts counter
guy suggested I grind off the offending metal on the rims but I can't
say I'm real comfortable with that. No dealer stocks the rotors so I
can't compare them, and at $163 each it's 3x the cost than from the local
auto parts place, so "just buying them there" isn't really an option. Yet.
Any ideas are welcomed. If I had a lathe I think grinding this pilot
would be a safe, easy way out. Is it common for a machinist to know
whether this is a good idea? The Ford parts guy said Ford hadn't changed
the rim or rotor design until '92 so there shouldn't be any mid-year production
run changes. I'm at a loss on how to inexpensively remedy this.
thanks,
jim
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