During light braking i experience a light shimmy in the steering wheel. I do not feel anything in the brake pedal. If I brake harder the shaking in the steering wheel goes away. The brakes dont pull and the truck drives great otherwise. I have only noticed it since I had new tires put on but, I didnt drive it too muh with the old tires. I was thinking steering stabilizer. Any thoughts?

Thanks
Matthew

 

I would recommend taking the rotors off and bringing them to an auto parts store for a clean up cut. I had an identical problem on an 02 1500 with about 60k on it. The clean-up cut fixed the problem for a while, but it came back and I ended up replacing the rotors, I also put on new pads while I was at it. The problem started small but got worse as time went on. I assume I warped the rotors at one point and the distortion continued to increase as time went on. When they chuck the rotors up in the lathe, listen to the cutting tool when they first touch the rotor. An intermittent noise will indicate rotors that are not true.

 

This situation is usually diagnosed as "warped rotors" and the experience of jrlaidle is common, i.e., a short-term fix via turning. In reality what has happened is more complex explaining why the remedy usually doesn't solve the problem.

Professional racing is very familiar with this phenomenon. What really happens is uneven heating of the rotor that instead of (or in addition to) warping them, actually changes the composition of the iron, making it super hard (I've forgotten the name of the metal formed by this process). Hence, turning the rotors only takes care of any warping but does not remove the deep hardening which soon re-presents itself as uneven braking through the pedal.

The only sure solution is new rotors and appropriate pads carefully broken-in according to approved procedures, usually a series of increasingly hard stops allowing adequate cooling in between. These procedures are probably available on-line at competion brake sites. Look under "rotor seasoning," or some such.

All the best.

 

Humm very interesting. How do you feel about sloted rotors and cryo treated rotors?

slotted

cryo

Thanks for the resopnses
Matthew

 

In my opinion, that type of technology is just too expensive for everyday driving. If you plan on racing your truck or maybe off-roading on some intense hills, perhaps the cost could be justified. The rotors I replaced cost about $50 a peice if I remember correctly and the originals lasted 60k before I had to replace them, so they are pretty cheap. The truck now has about 90k on it and no problems (with the brakes anyway). You would have to weigh the performance increase against the cost.

 

its definately warped rotors, it happened to my 04 quad cab.. if you have under 12K miles, they are covered by the warranty

 

Warped rotors. Get some new rotors and some good ceramic pads. It will be a LONG time before you have any problems with this combo.

 

jrlaidle - what brand of rotors did you find for $50 each?

Dave

 

I can't remember exactly how much they were, it was almost a year ago. I just went to Pep Boys and got them. They may have been more, but I seem to remember getting out of there under two bills for everything.

 

Most slotted rotors are okay on the street. DO NOT get drilled rotors for the street. They tend to stress crack, even when appropriately chamfered, etc. They are fine for the track where they are regularly inspected, of course.

As for cryonic treatment... so much hype and little empirical data. We had a fledgling cryo-company want to do a bunch of stuff on one of our race engines, gratis, but we didn't have one apart at the time. Interestingly, by the time we did, they'd gone bust. I'm a scientist and I want to see the real-world data, not just what some "sales-man" has to say. I've seen a little data from the labs and they were promising. But, even with the best case scenerio, as previously noted, it's needless overkill for the street on any application I can think of.

All the best.