turning brake drums, surface flywheel-amazed!

I'll turn drums all day.

But I have yet to meet a decent brake lathe that can cut within running out for a modern car.

Had a service writer want to get into it with me about why I always replaced rotors instead of cutting them.

Went and pulled the FSM - I think it was a Ford 500 I was working on. Been a while, so forgive the memory when I say it could have at most .003" run out.

Chucked a brand new rotor on the lathe, set my dial indicator, and called him over.

The lathe was turning at .009" run out. Three times the max spec.

Told him kind of hard to cut a rotor true when the lathe was already cutting it warped. At on to that, most hat type rotors warp before they wear. Yeah, that's awesome. Cut a warped rotor even thinner so it could warp that much quicker. Customer comes back a week or so later with a warped rotor complaint and we're comping new ones.

What an awesome idea.

Most brakes lathes in a tire, suspension, brake shop have been beat the **** out of. Throw it for scrap and just put on new rotors.

As long as drum isn't composite I might cut a whisper off of it, just to get rid of the rust lip. Other than that, screw it.

Flywheels?

My local machine shops will cut them all day long for me, usually within an hour so I can get the damned project out the door.