The rotors had been turned at or near the discard thickness, and with excessive runout (I blame poor bench lathe use). The pads look OK, but reusing old pads on new rotors tends to be noisy, and wont last as long. Pad clips will also be replaced on this model.

There was also a leaky axle seal on the rear, so I'll be replacing both. The labor is the same for one or both, and they're the same age. Seals are cheap.

The tire wear I was just blaming on it being a Ranger, but it turned out it had bad ball joints. I feel dumb, because i thought i checked them, but realized my inspection procedure was based on an earlier model. I re-inspected, and yup, upper right joint was way loose, and lower was a little too. Eventually we'll do the ones on the left side too, but not today.

When i was pressing the old upper joint out, it disintegrated

The new joint has a much tougher, greasable design, plus it has a cool blue polyurethane dust boot.

The new lower one is also a better design, taking after the new upper. Here i am pressing the new lower joint in.

Here are the new parts installed on the right front.

I did the same to the brakes on the left front.

These are just a couple pics of me doing the rear axle seals. I just dig the way the differential ring gear looks with its long curved teeth ;)

The straight toothed cog sticking out behind the ring gear is called an "exciter ring". It sends a signal to the ABS module via a hall effects switch, together making the speed sensor for the rear antilock brakes.

This last pic is looking all the way through the axle tubes through the center to the other side, with the axles removed.

I just think that's kinda neat.

These rear brakes are still nice and clean. We caught the seal in time, unlike on Rebecca's Astro van from /2006/02/saturday_adventures