really bad shake

[bigal0043]

alright ive noticed more that as i get up to speed on the highway i have a really bad shake well its more like a bad vibration than a shake because it feels like the whole car is shaking..... now its not all the time it will do this its on and off so i guess the wheels are balanced... also must note that at low speeds it dosent do this unless i was at the high speed and it was shaking and i slow down it will continue to shake until around 15mph... so think bad brakes would cause a failure like that.. though i looked at them after and they arent overally hot

any ideas?

 

[IJ.]

So it does it worse on trailing throttle?
(engine braking foot off the gas)

 

[bigal0043]

not really about the same

 

[Shytheed Dumas]

I had a similar problem recently. Shaking through the seat, and it would come and go (days in between sometimes) at higher speeds, and it would really shake when braking. Since I never had any shake when braking when the vibration wasn't there I thought I had ruled out the brakes and replaced the center carrier bearing, but the vibration still came and went.

It turned out my rear passenger brake caliper was hanging up slightly at times, the rotor would heat up, and it would shake. I think since it was an intermittent problem I didn't see a lot of indication of excessive heat, although when I removed the caliper it was definitely shot. New calipers - no problem. Might be worth looking into.

 

[Alex91Mk3]

it still shakes at 15 mph? cant be balancing problems i think

 

[bigal0043]

how do you check calipers???? because i wouldnt doubt the back driver side on to be bad... if anyone remembers my thread a while back some used liquid nails to hold the pivot point on it.. yea that didnt hold up good and it was scrapping against my back wheel

 

[Shytheed Dumas]

It was obvious just by pulling the caliper and trying to move the piston. It wouldn't budge. It was pretty easy to pull the caliper - 2 bolts and slide it off the disc, pinch off the brake line with a vice grip and unscrew the caliper from the line. (Putting the calipers/pads back together and reinstallation was a little more trying, and of course you would need to bleed the lines).

Based on what I saw on the driver's side, you should be able to push the piston back with a little firm thumb pressure once it's disconnected from the brake line. The bad caliper wouldn't move at all, and I had to beat it apart with a hammer to get the piece off that I needed to move over to the rebuilt.

 

[Facime]

Caliper freeze is very common on our cars. The bushing that allows the caliper to slide back and forth on the mount (and therefore remain centered over the rotor) gets gummed up and eventually will freeze up completely. It is definately a possiblility for what is causing your vibration. 3 of the 4 calipers on my car were frozen when I got it and I had very similiar symptoms to what you describe. Most of my vibration went away after fixing the problem.

 

[johnathan1]

I had to beat my FL caliper with a hammer too...check it out.

 

[bigal0043]

thanks guys ill look into this weekand i hope