Hey guys, I need some help. I bought my first 2000 Ram 1500 and I love it. I am in the process of doing a front brake job, and I need to replace the rotor. I got the caliper off, but can't remove the rotor because the bracket that the caliper attaches to is blocking it. Do I need to remove this bracket? There are 2 large bolts that attach this bracket and I can't get them to budge even with an impact wrench. Is there something I'm missing here? Any help is very appreciated. The truck's up on jackstands until I can get this figured out. Thanks.

 

Welcome to the board
I downloaded the manual and yes that bracket has to come off. Did you clean and use liquid wrench penetrating oil? Good luck I hope others chime in.
You know if push comes to shove. You can use a small butane torch and heat that sucker then use the impact wrench. Oh well good luck again

 

yes, that bracket held on by those 2 bolts have to come off. Have you tried a breaker bar???? generally if you can't get a bolt off with an impact, try a breaker bar with a cheater pipe...don't try too hard or you'll snap it off. After you get that bracket off make sure there aren't any clips around the lug studs, if there are just break them with a pear of dikes, and that rotor will slip right off. If it's rusted on there, just beat the **** out of it, cuz you getting a new one anyways....

 

A propane tourch on them bolts might help as well. I ended up getting my brother in law to come down and get them off for me lol He's a big guy. He used a breaker bar like mentioned above

 

PB B'laster. Awesome stuff. +1 for a cheater bar with a 1/2" drive ratchet. You get enough leverage and you can loosen anything :P

 

Do this...

1. Get some kind of penetrating oil
2. Spray the hell out of it
3. Drinka Rock Star and wait about 10 minutes
4. Give it hell
[sm=deal.gif]

 

This must be for the 2000 because I just replaced both my front calipers and rotors and brake pads and I don't remember a bracket holding my rotor in place. One I removed the caliper it just slid off. Is this that was added after my yr model? By the way I agree with Ram2K1.......and the rest that suggest heating and penetrating oils.

 

Hey Guys thanks for all the suggestions. I went with half a stick of dynamite and that did the trick! Actually, I used 1/2 a can of PB's over 2 hours and smacked the bolts with a hammerafter every application (WD40 is useless). I put an 18" breaker on them and still nothing. I then heated each one for a couple minutes each with a propane torch, hit them with more PB's and the breaker bar and success! There's no sound sweeter than that "crack" as they broke free. Thanks again for the suggestions. This forum kicks ***.

BTW, I bought my rotors from from PEP Boys and the bushings that the caliper bolts slide in that came with the new caliperwere too short!!!! WTF. They were about 1/2" too short and the caliper bolts bottomed out on the very edge of the rotor. The rotor wouldn't turn after I installed the new caliper and I discovered the problem. I had to take the caliper back out and re-use the bushings from the seized original Dodge caliper. Works perfect now but what a pain in the ***.

 

Do you mean the races? Something doesn't sound right. You should not reuse old races.

 

No not the races, but the cylinder that the caliper bolts slide through, the one that slides between the rubber boots. The one that was provided with the replacement caliper was 1/2" shorter than the original. It was also a crappy aluminum part and the original was a brass (or bronze) one. When I brought the caliper core back the guy THEN told me that this is a frequent occurence.