I know that there have been other posters on here that have asked about what to do when the knuckle rusts out and creates a divot where the brake pad rides so I have created a short walk through on how I went about remedying this problem. Once the divot is formed the pad falls into the groove and gets stuck there, when the caliper applies pressure it squeezes the pad unevenly and decreases the braking efficiency, which as we know already sucks on Cherokees. Plain and simple I filled the divots with weld and then ground them flush to provide a flat surface for the pad to ride on.




First start by disassembling the brakes. Unbolt the caliper from the knuckle and set aside then remove the rotor. Now would be the time to replace the brakes as well maybe even a cheap slide kit.



This First picture shows the DS Upper pad guide, you can see the divot here pretty well, it's not much but it's noticeable in the way the pads have worn. There was probably 4MM on the top part of pad and 2MM on the lower part where the divot was considerably smaller.




These pictures are after I took a pneumatic angle grinder with a 3" sanding disk and removed the rust and smoothed the divots out some.







The pictures don't justify it much but the PS Knuckle had a much larger divot in it






This is the weld that I started with, once again I used the angle grinder to work the weld back down so that it was flat.



This is the upper and lower after grinding them smooth, I got both edges that the pad touches.






After all is said and done and the new pads have broken in (I cut my rotors since they were only a year old, and I have access to the equipment. normally I opt to replace them but money was not on my side for this one. besides working on saving up for rear disc conversion) I do notice a considerable difference in pedal firmness and a reduced effort to come to a stop, under both normal and hard braking. the slight pull to the left on hard braking at higher speed has diminished to nil. I hope that some of you find this useful, and good luck.



Keywords: Rusted , Brake , Knuckle, Repair , Divot , Welding , Pads , Rotors , Brake guide , Deteriorated , Rut ,
Front Brakes , Calipers ,