I have an 89 Dodge Dakota. I did a brake job on this truck about 6 months ago. I started having a problem with vibration from 30-50mph about two months ago. Also get a surge starting from a dead stop, feels like something is out of round. Also get a very noticable noise like bad bearings. I replaced the bearings on the front, the rotors and brake pads looked good. I was getting a lot of noise from the rear brakes so I replaced the drums. The shoes looked good. After replacing the drums I started having pulsing on the brake pedal. I then replaced both rotors. Not sure if the vibration at 30-50mph has anything in common with the brake pulsing. Since the brake pulsing started by replacing parts trying to get rid of the vibrtation. Other things that have been done. New tires put on in January. I have had the drive train looked at, I was told the ujoints are good. I drained the differential and inspected the gears, they looked good. A new rack and pinion was installed. I was told by the shop, they had installed a different rack so they had to replace the tie rods. Not sure if this could have caused the vibration problem. This is starting to drive me nuts. Anyone have any ideas?

 

Take off the rear tires, make sure the drums are on right, and put the tires on using torque wrench. I used an impact wrench to tighten rear tires and it caused things pulsate and make some noise when braking.

 

If the vibrations only happen when braking, then your rotors or drums are worped. They may look good, but they are bad. Get them machined down or replace them.

 

I bought new rotors and drums. I replaced the drums first and the brake pulsation started. I thought I would let the self adjusting do its thing, so there should not have been any tension on the drums, so I thought the problem must have been with the rotors. I replaced the rotors and that did not help. I saw a footnote in my truck manual that if this problem occurs to rotate the drums clockwise two lugnuts. I will try that on Tuesday. I could have bought bad drums. More troubleshooting needed. Thanks for the ideas.

 

I had replaced both the rotors and the drums. The pulsation got violent on the way home yesterday. It felt like it was coming from the right rear drum so I removed that drum and put the best of my old drums back on. The pulsation stopped and the brakes have now adjusted the way they should. I took that drum back. I am now back to my original problem of a shudder when first starting off and then between 30-50mph. I think it is coming from the drive shaft even though I had it looked at and was told it was good. I will keep troubleshooting, any ideas about this would help.

 

an off balance driveshaft would get worse the faster you go it has to be a friction it overcomes around 50 check the rear diff

 

Back in the late 70's early 80's what we used to do when the drums and shoes were replaced was have the new shoes cut down to fit the drums. If you did not get this done at the parts store where you bought the drums and shoes, you could do something similar at home by taking a file to the sharp edges of the shoes and test fitting to the new drum to make sure they were making full contact with the drum instead of just the edges. That was done to avoid the shaking, pulsating pedal and to make sure there was going to be proper braking.

I know that is really old school but, so am I..

As for the shudder when you first start off, that could be a bum wheel cylinder not releasing the shoes or even a bad caliper not releasing the pads properly. Where does the shudder feel like it is coming from, the front or the rear? If the rear, definitely check out the wheel cylinders to make sure they are not sticking. Another thing to check is the parking brake cables. They freeze up sometimes due to non use and can cause the rear brakes to stick a bit.

Hope that helps.

 

check your rear brakes, check the hardware, make sure the adjuster cable hasnt stretched. easy way to find the issue, when you apply the brakes does the entire trucks pulsate or just the steering wheel. or both? if truck its in the rear, if wheel its in the front, if both its...well...both...drums, shoes, rotors, and pads pretty much need to be changed together...you usually wanna either machine the drum or rotor when you put new pads or shoes on. that way they both have flat surfaces to rub against.