Rotor bolts necessary?

mikeyk101 · October 12, 2022

So I'm in the process of changing out the brake pads and rotors on the front of my 2016 Silverado 1500. The parts I need won't be delivered until later this afternoon but I decided to get a jump on getting the old stuff off and ready for the new parts. Right side went well and I got everything off. Then I went to left side. Everything up to the rotor went fine until it came to removing the T30 bolt holding the rotor on to the hub. The T30 bit was fitted into the bolt and when turning the socket wrench, the bit broke off in the bolt face and was flush! Oh Yay!!!

This was part of the reason I decided to get it started so if any problems popped up, I could get it taken care off to make reassembly easier. So I decided the best way to tackle this was to drill the face off the bolt. It took a while but finally mangled it up enough that a couple pounds with my mini sledge got the rotor off. There was enough of the bolt exposed sticking out of the hub that I could grab it with a pair of vice grips and got it out. And it didn't take much effort to do that. The face wasn't rusted and neither were the threads so not sure how the bit snapped off in the head.

But so now, I'm just waiting for the new parts. I called around to several auto parts places including a Chevy dealership and no one has one in stock. I have seen some posts that said it was only used by factory when originally installing the rotors and really isn't necessary. I'm tempted to just put the new rotors on and leave this bolt off on both sides. Any thoughts on this?

jwhjr · October 12, 2022

It will be fine without.

mikeyk101 · October 12, 2022

Cool, that makes things easier. Thanks.

rav3 · October 12, 2022

Yep what jwh said. However, what I do is add a "little" antizseize to that bolt so I can get it off next time. NTW, you can buy them off Amazon...even SS ones.

mikeyk101 · October 12, 2022

2 hours ago, rav3 said:

Yep what jwh said. However, what I do is add a "little" antizseize to that bolt so I can get it off next time. NTW, you can buy them off Amazon...even SS ones.

Since I can, I'm just going to go without. 1 less thing to go wrong the next time around. But like I mentioned, the face of bolt had no rust on. And after pounding old rotor off, what was left easily came out without much effort. The only thing I can think of was the backside of face became frozen and rusted onto the rotor mounting bevel.

Although it wouldn't surprise me after what I went through when removing the Rough Country level spacer bolts. That was an adventure I never want to go through again. Pretty sure it was the fault of the bolts. They were only threaded on tip half instead of the entire bolt. If they only used bolts that are completely threaded, there would be less chance of the bolts getting rusted in place on lower control arms....

Spendit · October 13, 2022

In all my 30+ years of doing shade tree mechanic brake jobs, I have never put the assembly line hold-in-place bolts back on. Rotors on 1st and a move down the line to caliper install required them to keep things in place. If they are a recommended item most repair kits would include them as well.......I say they are not needed