How do you remove the rear rotor on a 1995 infiniti q45?

Answer 1

I think this approach will work on a 1995 Q45. I have a 1994 Infiniti Q45, and, per the service manual, I tried the "rubber mallet" approach as follows: (1) remove the disc pads, (2) remove the caliper assembly which I did in two steps: first removing the pads then removing the two 14mm bolts which secure the caliper assembly - you will need a good wrench and leverage to initially "break" the two 14mm bolts, (3) back off the parking brake shoes by means of inserting a medium sized screwdriver into the hole in the rotor (the hole should be somewhere around the five o'clock position and slowly ratchet the parking brake adjusting cam to the point where the brake shoes have contracted inwardly and are no longer close enough to the inside of the rotor to inhibit the rotor being removed. I had to experiment on which way to pry the cam to loosen the brake - you will need to know this because when you install new rotors - and possibly new parking brake shoes - you will need to pry the cam in the opposite direction to adjust the parking brake shoes properly after reassembly. (4) after loosening the parking brake shoes, one tap of the mallet caused the passenger side rotor to free up and all I had to do was pull it straight off. (5) the drivers side rotor was a real challenge: I followed all the above procedures but the rotor wouldn't budge. I tried some really hard mallet blows and nothing happened. I tried some penetrant spray to loosen up the center where the rotor appeared to be frozen where it contacts the wheel hub. Wouldn't budge. NOTE: if you try a penetrant oil it is critical that you subsequently spray the area with brake cleaner to completely remove any traces of oil. I then applied some propane torch heat to the rotor (never apply heat to the axle!) But that didn't work either. After a good night's rest I decided I couldn't bear the humiliation of having the job finished by a shop, so I asked myself what I had NOT tried. After staring at the rotor about 20 minutes I started thinking about the two small threaded holes on the rotor exactly 180 degrees apart. BINGO: these are there so you can screw in two metric bolts to, in effect, act as a puller. They don't have to be more than 3/4 of an inch long - sorry I don't know what 3/4 inch is in metric terms - Hand screw the bolts in till they can't be hand tightened anymore, then alternately tighten each bolt one turn at a time. By the time I had completed just two turns of each bolt, the rotor "popped" loose. Eureeka! The bolts press down on the hub assembly, and the pressure ends up "pushing" the rotor away from the hub. I don't know the exact metric specifications on the bolts - I just found a few that fit in my miscellaneouse nuts and bolts bin. Any decent hardware store should carry an assortment - and you can probably "eyeball " the appropraite metric bolts. Oh, by the way, the factory service manual and alldata files make no mention of this removal procedure. That's it. Think I got carried away with details, but maybe this can save someone the maddening frustration I experienced before I figured out what to do.