Help with front end vibrations when braking

[kkrup62 at hotmail.com (Karl Krupke)]

Hi Cory,
    The general consensus seems to be warped rotors... makes sense since the 
shimmy only happens when brakes applied.
    Yeah but, you have a Mk1. You didn't specify year, but some MK1's had a 
brake pad wear indicator cast on the rotor (and I don't remember which years 
or what the brake type was; Girling, ATE, etc. Sorry).
    Best way to check is to pull a front wheel off; you'll see the shiny 
surface of the rotor where the pads normally make contact. If there's a wear 
indicator, it'll be a surface the same height as the swept ring of the rotor 
but inside (toward sthe center of the rotor), roughly 1.5 - 2.0 inches long 
(in an arc) and .50 - .75 inches wide (from radially outmost to inmost 
edge).
    Hard to describe accurately in words... hmm. OK, look at an "O". Round 
inside and out. If you put a dot inside the O touching it, that's sort of 
what the wear indicator looks like.
    The way it works is; the pads for that disc brake type have a shelf of 
pad material at the level where the pads are at the end of their service 
life. When the pads wear down far enough, the shelf makes contact with the 
indicator on the rotor, so whenever you apply the brakes you get a light 
knocking and shimmying feel.
    Check that before you go replacing rotors.

Karl

>From: Cory Langford <Cory_Langford@bcit.ca>
>To: "Scirocco List" <scirocco-l@scirocco.org>
>Subject: Help with front end vibrations when braking
>Date: Fri, 9 Feb 2007 08:15:17 -0800
>
>
>
>
>Well, the mk1 has started to shimmy and shake quite a bit when the brakes
>are applied.
>
>My first instinct is to check the tie-rod ends, but then I thought about it
>and figured if they were bad it would be doing odd things even at speed.
>Driving it is fine. No shaking, steers straight, etc.
>
>When you hit the brakes the whole steering wheel starts feeling like one of
>those force feedback units in the arcade when you hit a wall or grass :)
>
>So I figure I would check the wisdom of the list and see if anyone had a
>similar issue in the past and can save me a bunch of time figuring out
>where the shaking is coming from.
>
>Ideas?
>
>Cory


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