'84-'87 Brake Dust Shields

[CaptainHindsight]

$100 for a set of four seems high. Has anyone found or made another solution vs just getting rid of them?

[pmbrunelle]

In a general sense, I'm not really sure what functions these things perform.
Heat shielding for ball joint boots from hot rotor?
Keeps water off the rotor? You can get the water off by brake pedal application after driving through a puddle, or with cross-drilling.

On Saturn S-Series, there was a TSB to remove the shields when the cars came in for brake service.

On 84-87 Fieros, the front shields also include a lip which helps protect the the wheel bearing grease seal from dirt. I didn't want the brake rotor shields in general, but I wanted to keep that specific feature, so I simply cut off the parts of the shield that were unrelated to the wheel bearing seal protection.

IMG_5617.JPG (197.91 KiB) Viewed 829 times

After cleanup (but before blast+paint):

IMG_5621.JPG (139.32 KiB) Viewed 829 times

These parts are simple enough to be fabricated from scratch.

[CaptainHindsight]

This car might get caught in some snow or slush while driving home. It will be a daily driver 9 months out of the year. I like the small shields for the front just to help keep muck away from the bearing seals.

[Emc209i]

They specifically protect the rotor face from pitting and scaring. Imagine a grain of sand hitting the side of a red hot rotor during hard braking, clinging, and being drawn between the rotor surface and the pad. Those shields do actually increase the life of the rotor. That said you can get away without using them. The surface area of the stock Fiero rotor is tiny. And what do new 9" rotors cost, relatively nothing? It's not exactly a carbon-ceramic disc.

Get on facebook marketplace and find someone in Texas/Arizona to knock the dust off a set installed on a junk car sitting in their backyard and mail them to you.