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Brake pedal pulsates?

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I just put a 3in lift on a 83 Brat, with six lug 14in rims and 26in tires. I put new rotors and had the drums turned, with all new pads. I have not had it aligned yet, but it drives staight and the steering wheel does not shake. But when I apply the brakes the pedal pulsates and the steering wheel shakes from side to side. I'm sure it it something that I messed up, but I not sure what. Any Ideas? I also replaced the front bearings before I installed the lift.

Sounds like textbook warped rotor.....where these 'new' rotors really new? or just different?

 

could also be bad CV, but that wouldn't cause almost any pedal pulsing.

i had a warped new rotor, right out of the box last year. same thing you're describing.

 

what i did was jack the front of the car up. i turned both wheels by hand. i could barely feel the passengers side catch at one point during the revolution of the wheel. it was very light. i was surprised how hard it was to tell considering how terrible it pulsated when braking. i guess at speed with the calipers clamped makes all the difference. anyway, i took about 5 times going back and forth between passenger and drivers side to convince myself that the little catch i was feeling while turning the wheel by hand was the bad rotor. took it back and they gave me a new one.

 

unfortunately i got these rotors at a store i don't normally go to and it was in the city. took some convincing as the guy swore i had driven on these or didn't install them properly. he gave me a new one though.

I've had the same quality issues with new rotors recently. You can pull the wheel and use a point on the backing plate as a reference point. It doesn't take a lot of out-of-round to make you feel it when you're braking.

question: can a warped rotor be turned? or does it have to be replaced....

hmm.. I was getting the same shaking a while ago also.... got the rotors turned, did not replace the pads, and the shaking went away... for a while...

 

Now the shaking is back :mad: Is this something you have to do at the same time as you replace the pads? I figured if the pads were a bit off, the newly turned rotors should true them up.

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They are brand new rotors, the reason I bought new was because it did the same thing with the old ones. I have a feeling that the wheels are not to the hub after I modified it to fit the the six lug rims.

they can be re-turned, but not machined

 

?

 

I hope you're just playing on words. A rotor can be machined until it reachs the minimum spec for thickness. The solution for a warped rotor is machining/turning on a brake lathe.

I know our company f150 had new rotors put on and within a couple of weeks they started pulsing. They replaced them again, two weeks later, same thing. Then the shop turned the 2nd set of new rotors. Again, the pulse came back in a couple of weeks.

Turns out the supplier had a bad batch.

3rd set finally worked.

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