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car shakes violently when braking

greenacc

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I'm with Thumpin , i reckon its more often the pads than rotors.
I had shudder on my VS and changed the pads without touching rotors and the shudder was gone.
and for my 2 cents I used Bendix ultra premium brake pads from super cheap auto, about $60. Also make sure you GREASE THE SLIDE PINS on the callipers with the proper grease every chance you get.
 

Tom_1569

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I'm with Thumpin , i reckon its more often the pads than rotors.
I had shudder on my VS and changed the pads without touching rotors and the shudder was gone.
and for my 2 cents I used Bendix ultra premium brake pads from super cheap auto, about $60. Also make sure you GREASE THE SLIDE PINS on the callipers with the proper grease every chance you get.

Are you referring to the Guide pin bolt? If so that is suppose to have loc-tight not grease. According to the manual they should be replaced everytime, but pffft who does that lol.
I learnt the hard way after losing that bolt and having next to know brakes coming into a red light at the bottom of a hill in an 80 zone :(
 

Dayvo

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i know it sounds stupid, but i had this problem a while ago and after alot of money on the front end and many stressful bad results it was the rear rotors. it felt like the front and i was damn sure it was the front even most of the mechanics said it was the front. but one guy said to replace the back, so i did and have never had the problem again.

I have the same problem , Replaced front rotors and half the front end bits before a brake shop put it on the rollers and diagnosed it as the rear rotors , took me about 12 months to work it out
 

98 vt olympic

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ok cool well i have had all rotors machined lasted for 3 months car does not have ABS and my driving style well thats y they built FORDS to keep ********s out of holdens
 

vt_lover

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do you use the automatic car washes? just asking as they are not the best for your brakes as they throw a stream of water onto your wheels and brakes while there red hot from the drive to the car wash.
 

Tsunamix

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Ok I have been there done that. yes - Factory VT rotors are often crap. I when to a set of GSA slotteds all round and that helped. Change PAD spec as well to pads that cover the entire metal plate rather than just a smaller one. Because of the sometimes less than stellar quality of the meal used in the original pads, you can get parts of the rotor heating unevenly - heat not being conducted away evenly in spots. GSA has some police spec pads that rock.

Things you wouldn't normally check - make sure you DON'T have a unidirectional tyre mounted backwards on one rim. that WILL shake one corner all to hell.

Make sure your pistons in the calipers are moving freely and equally - a casting dag can limit travel on one cylinder.

For gawd's sake NEVER EVER EVER let a lazy tyre tech use a freaking rattle gun on your wheel nuts. The studs on VT's are soft, designed to give rather than shear. Over tightening will stretch a stud. The ONLY safe way to do up a wheel nut is to nip it up by hand with the car off the ground, with a brace, then LOWER the car until there is some (not ALL0 the cars weight on the ground, and tighten then up with the brace. Do not really lean or swing on it. Just tighten. This is for TWO reasons - Firstly, it will be you or the missus that has to undo these nuts on the side of the road when you get a flat and Secondly to avoid stud stretch.

Stud Stretch will make the disk assembly unbalance and exacerbate any shake issues you have.

If you still have brake shudder these are the steps I woyuld take, and in this order -

1. Get wheels balanced. All of them.
2. refit Balanced wheels by hand using above method. If brakes still shudder -
3. Check tyres for worn spots indicating bubbles in tyres. If all good -
3. replace Brake pads with GSA Police spec pads. All 4 of them. If they still shudder -
4. Replace rotors with slotteds - NOT RDA brand as they have has some quality issues. I use GSA and they are great. Again - all 4 of them.
5. Replace bushes and rose joints in the hub mounts, and the trailing link bushes ( i can't think of the proper name) from the front chassis rail to the hub. If it still shudders -
6. Throw the car away.
 

98 vt olympic

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i wash car by hand
dayvo hey but if it was the rear rotors y would the steering wheel being going crazy for..... its the steering wheel going crazy when braking and when i have got to crawling speed i get the jurking motion from the rear i assume as the hand brake goes nuts
the other night pulling up to the lights i thought to just put the hand brake on a little just before the car stopped but the car didnt jurk im assuming that the hand brake uses the same caliper as the normal brakes
 

Not_An_Abba_Fan

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4. Replace rotors with slotteds - NOT RDA brand as they have has some quality issues.

No they don't. They are just as good, if not better, then some of the leading brands.


The hand brake uses shoes inside the rear rotor.
 

Dayvo

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i wash car by hand
dayvo hey but if it was the rear rotors y would the steering wheel being going crazy for..... its the steering wheel going crazy when braking and when i have got to crawling speed i get the jurking motion from the rear i assume as the hand brake goes nuts
the other night pulling up to the lights i thought to just put the hand brake on a little just before the car stopped but the car didnt jurk im assuming that the hand brake uses the same caliper as the normal brakes

Yes my steering wheel did shake really bad which is why i thought it was my front rotors.
I took the car to "Just Brakes" and they have a machine similar to a dyno. They drive the front wheels on it and run it at about 60 kays then apply the brakes and there was no shudder .Then they done the same thing to the rears and thats when the car started shaking. One thing you can do to check the rear discs to see if they are warped and you don't have access to a dial indicator is put your car up on stands and take off the rear wheels then re fit the wheel nuts to stop the disc from coming off then start it up and put it into gear and let it idle then using a texta slowly move it towards the disc till it just touches it . if the disc is warped the texta will only touch in one spot .
 

SoundGuy_025

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This a very interesting thread this..cos I have the same problem. It was really bad, with massive vibration in the steering wheel when I braked downhill especially. I've improved it heaps by putting dba slotted rotors, bendix ct pads in the front and getting the wheels properly balanced. The balance made the most difference, which I already had done already..which I guess they didn't do properly the first time. I still have a little vibration noise which I'm pretty sure is coming from the front right, but no wheel or pedal vibration. My front left has a bit of wobble so I'm trying to track down a replacement alloy, cos on the dba website it says that a buckled or unbalanced wheel can cause runout. I'm not having any luck what so ever with that. I did notice that my back rotors have quite a bad lip. So I'm gunna try changing them over like as few of you suggested and see what happens.
 
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