Drilling Your Own Brake Rotors

[Göran Persson]

Hello,

One more tip,
When I made the drill pattern on my PC,
I printed out the template on
transparent plastic overhead projector film
using a laser printer.
This made the lining up of the template
on the rotor very easy.

Regards
Göran Persson
New Zealand

[hooktool]

I used 5/16 and drilled on my vertical mill. No pilot drill, just plenty of plain motor oil which I use for any machining. Plain HSS drill, which I sharpened a couple of times near the end.

The SS allen screws etc. are much cheaper at your local bolt/screw supplier if you live in/near a fair sized town. I was buying from The Bolt Depot and found that both of my local places are much cheaper. Buying ss bolts and making them shiny is addictive! ;D

John

[Tackett]

rube said:

I used the template at liberalredneck.org/techfiles/XS650rotors/
as a guide.
-Aaron

Cool - I had forgotten I put those up there.

Tackett

[NIGHTMARE]

I drilled .31 holes in the swirl desig using cutting oil and my drill doctor.I only had to sharpen the bit twice.

[Ratledge]

Goran,

What software did you use to create your template? Anybody got a template for the smaller rear disc rotor?

[Göran Persson]

Hello Ratledge,

I used Micrografx Designer 7.0 and 9.0.

I can snail mail you a printout for the rear disk.
(90 holes)

Regards
Göran Persson
New Zealand

[Ratledge]

Never heard of that software, but Looked it up online and discovered (of course) that it is PC only, and I'm a Mac man. Guess I'll take some measurements and try to build it in Photoshop, but I'm not that skilled a designer.

Did you design the rear disc template on this software as well? If so couldn't you just convert it to a PDF file as I read online the software is capable of that?

[Göran Persson]

Hello Ratledge,

Drill Pattern for the Rear Disk sent as PDF File.

Regards
Göran Persson
New Zealand

[Ratledge]

Goran,

Thanks for the template on the rear disc. Once I get it on my server I'll post it up here for all to use.

I sent you an email regarding the matching pattern for the rear on the front left and right rotors. Got those too?

Thanks again, man!

Download the rear disc hole pattern PDF here:

homepage.mac.com/dpwanab/FileSharing12.html

[miker]

Another approach - if you keep the number of swirls or whatever to 6 (or multiples thereof), you can make a board with a pivot for the disc center to rotate on and put a hole to pin the disc thru the mounting hole. They are 60 degrees apart. Add several pinning holes 10 or 20 degree offset from the first one and you can clamp it all on the drill press, mark your first hole, and then rotate it around and mark all the other similar holes for as many copies as you need. Hope that made sense.

I'm just about done with mine, doing a sparse pattern of 3-2-3-2-3-2 indexed off the mounting holes. Marking all the holes with a center drill was really quick. My press doesn't have a slow enough speed so I'm burning up bits tho.

miker

[miker]

Ok, finished that up this afternoon... I only have 15 holes so it didn't take long. Things I learned:

1. I tried both the titanium coated bits and the cobalt bits from Sears; the cobalt was definitely much superior for a very small additional cost.

2. 1/8" and 1/4" worked easy; the 3/8" final size was grabbing on me until I started holding the disc down more firmly. I'd drill until the oil smoked, let the bit cool while putting a little more oil on, and drill some more. (My drill press isn't slow enough, so especially the 3/8" was turning too fast.)

3. After 40+ years of messing with drills I finally learned how to sharpen a bit. It's dead easy! My first holes with the newly sharpened cobalt were better than when it was new.

miker

[cautioninc]

I was wondering what bad things would happen if you only drilled 3 or 4 holes, on the edge, spaced around the disc. I don't particularly want the whole pattern, but I'd like to have something to attach a disc lock to...

Thanks

[eric123]

As long as they were evenly spaced and not too close to the edge, it would be fine...

[eric123]

Here is a Suzuki GN400 rotor I drilled...I made the template from a free online CAD style program...

[orforester]

I used this link to drill holes in my disk and had no troubles at all. Bought three colbalt Sears 5/16 bits and only used one on both disks, never got dull, but the drill was on SLOW, SLOW speed and I used LOTS of oil, found an old can of Royal Triten oil, that is really thick, like 50w, it worked great, must be a little grafite in it.

I would do it again in a heart beat. I did tap pilot holes first to see the pattern. Used the template and sharpe to mark the pattern, that took longer than the drilling, about half hour per disk and I used three holes. It doesn't quite get the whole pad covered, but should do the trick for wet braking and looks Cool!