Alright, too much usefull info on this forum, but this one is hard to search for without really knowing what it is.

My front end has been kinda vibrating/pulsing when I brake lately so I decided to check out the brakes. They arent old and were turned on the last change, as it turns out everything looks ok with the brakes and rotors and everything was tight, but I noticed this.

Can anyone tell me what this means and if its serious.

BTW, we are looking over the brakes on the passenger side, front of vehicle.

Thanks!

[IMG]local://upfiles/67976/E285ACF3ACFE4BF38F26434EF771A2C7.jpg[/IMG]

 

Looks like its just a dust seal to keep out dirt and such.

 

So, is this a priority issue? Or could it wait? Theres a bunch of string or twine in there too, not sure if thats what ripped it off or not.

 

I doubt that is the issue. You said during light braking. Your rears engage first. Maybe the rears need to be turned and not the fronts. Maybe an adjustment in the rear is due as well.

 

Lately, not lightly

Actually, the closer I get to stopping the worse it gets.

 

I think your frontrotors are warped. The rear brakesin our trucks are ridiculously small, but they do help out some. If you're a hard braker and your rears have stopped working then all the force is on the fronts and they heat up and warp quicker. Especially on the pre-2000 models as they upped the brake size on the late models. It's possible they were beyond saving when they were turned. It's sometimes hard to see warping with the rotor still attached. Pull it and check it out.


As far as the dust cover, I don't think that'll hurt a thing.Last time I checked, nothing on my truck was held together with twine. You probably just picked that up driving overor thru something.

 

As stated above, the pulsation your feeling is most likely in the brakes. Most likely warped front rotors. If you don't keep your rear drum brakes adjusted (they have self adjusters, but it really takes hand adjusting them to keep them adjusted properly), then the front brakes do even more than their share. This tends to overheat the rotors and warpage occurs.

If the front rotors are wapred (pulsation in pedal when applying brakes and steering wheel shake), I would just replace them. They have tolerances to be "turned", but you have already warped them which means the brake shop will have to cut quite a bit of material off to true them. That means the brake rotors will be thinner and have less heat dissapation than originally and will warp even faster the second time.

Repace your rotors with a slotted (not drilled - they crack easily) rotor like "Powerslot" or some other reputable company. The slotted rotors are not that much more exspensive than the top of the line standard rotor (yes there are differences in rotor quality), and they clear debris and resist "gassing" between the pad and rotor.

It's not out of the question that your rear brake drums are warped either. To check for this, your symptom would be similar to the front brake rotor warpage, but the steering wheel will not shake when applying the brakes. You will feel a pulsation in the brake pedal and the rears can be diagnosed rather easily by traveling 50mph and then pulling the e-brake release lever at the same time that you apply the e-brake (this will keep the e-brake from locking and making that ratcheting sound which can be distracting while your trying to check for this condition). If the same pulsation is felt by doing this, your problem is isolated to the rear brakes. Replace the shoes and have the drums turned. the drums ou can go ahead and urn because they are so much thicker than the rotors and they don't do as much work as the fronts even when properly adjusted.

Anyway, if you find the problem is in the front brakes, don't just fix them and move on. Make sure you clean and adjust the rear brakes as well and check them often (like every other oil change) and adjust them. Remember that properly adjusted rear brakes can extend your front brake pad and rotor life and also make your trucks braking as capable as possible.

 

Thank you everyone for the very detailed information.

I will def be checking out the rears asap, the rotors were new (mopar) 20k miles ago and have only been turned 1x so I hate the throw em away, but if it gets rid of that feeling then its worth it.

Now I just need to figure out if my performance issues are my cat or not.

Great forum everybody, I lose myself reading all the information.

 

IMHO, turning rotors is for chumps. I want as much meat on mine as possible, so I always buy new. Period.

 

Or spend ~$30 bux more and upgrade to powerstops from summit racing. that is what I did on my 2000, braked better than ever.