Just had an interesting problem with my Ram 2500 4x4 with the 8800# axles. I've been having a grinding noise for the past couple of months. I recently replaced the front brakes, ball joints, tie rod, universals and hub bearings. There weren't enough O's in smooth until I developed this grinding noise. Hard to figure out. It would quit when I turned to the left or right. Applying the brakes had no effect, the noise continued. Thought I got a bad hub bearing butthere was no play in the bearing when I tried to move the tire.I decided to tear the truck down anyhowand inspect the bearings. The tear down was fairly easy due to the never seize. The bearings seemed fine. Everything on the front end was new except the rotors. When I inspected the brakes in the caliper, I noticed the inner pad on the piston sidehad a ridge of brake material on the outer edge about an 1/8"x1/8" along the entire edge. Thought I got the wrong pads from NAPA. Talked to the salesman and he pulled out every modelbrake for the 2500 and 3500. The rotor on the 2500 is a 12 1/2" diameter and I brought it with me. Each brake would have left a ridge. We were both puzzled. As I said I have the original rotors on the truck. They were never turned. Seems there is a chamfer of about 3/16 of an inch around the inner part of the original rotors. The new brakes wore down until this ridge would make intermittent contact on the outer edgewith rotor and rust which resulted in an annoyinggrinding noise. Bought new rotors and ran the fairly new old brakes over a piece of 80 grit sandpaper on a piece of plywood. The ridge came down nicely so I didn't replace them. Re-assembled the front end and back to smoooooth.

I hope my screw up by not changing the rotors when I replaced the hub bearings doesn't happen to you. What a PITA getting the old rotors off and putting them on new bearings. For you 1500 and newer 2500 guys, removing the rotors from my '97 2500means pulling the hub bearings and pressing out the lug bolts. But who knew, and after what was supposed to be universals, which led into BJ's, tie rod and hub bearings, the bank was broke for new rotors.