Front discs

hi there
I am about to fit new front disks to my build. In the VW books the front disks all seem to have a backplate and yet I dont appear to have this, does that mean its missing or I dont need it?

Thanks

Both . . . depending.

If you're going to drive your car as a fair weather toy, you can do without. If you use your car in an everyday fashion, the backing plates are a good idea.

The backing plates act pretty much as a shield to protect the inner surface of the rotor from nicks and impacts, prevent dirt from gathering inside the rotor hat, that sort of thing. Even with the plate attached to the spindle, the caliper is still exposed along with a portion of the back side of the wheel, spindle, brake line and such. It may help contain a bit of the brake dust as well I suppose, but most of that is thrown out against the inner rim surface, really.

I ran one on one off for a year or so on my old daily driver Ghia, no difference.

Luck,

TC

It's mostly to keep grease from getting on the rotors and ruining the pads.

A lot of the new aftermarket (EMPI) disc spindles aren't even drilled for the dust shields.