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"death" wobble during braking?

B

Barcus

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Daphne,AL
i dont know how else to describe bc it scares me to death. its only when i brake quickly. its a horrible shake side to side and i can literally see the front end wobble. im thinking warped rotors so im going to checked that out this afternoon. any others suggestion? i just picked the 85 jimmy sunday so im slowing going through everything that needs to be fixed.

referring to truck in sig. thanks!
 
Something major is most likely loosened or loosening up. I'm not sure warped rotors would cause that much wobble, but maybe! I would check everything on the front end.....Including lug nut tightness :) Yes it just happened to me recently and that sh** was tight!

Check ubolt to axle tightness, spring bushing to shackle/frame check all tie rod ends, steering linkage components. Steering system for play in linkages while on the ground. Then jack the thing up and check for play with it off the ground. Also check vertical play on the wheels/hubs (ie ball joints or bearings). It could be a combination of warped rotors and worn out bushings /shrug.
 
check to see if your wheels are balanced. I had the same thing after I got mine, went to get the wheels balanced, and that fixed it. One was really out of balance. Not saying that's definitely it, but something pretty easy to check.
 
i just had a shop tell me i needed rotora and pads but they wanted 425.00 to do it....guess who is replacing the hubs and pads this weekend? :)
 
I had this same problem turned out to be the nut that holds the bearings was loose.:eek1:
 
i wish mine was that simple....i pulled the wheel off when i got home and def need new pads and rotors....gonna buy new hub assemblies, pads, and repack bearings just to be on the safe side.
 
I would have guessed tierods or some sort of bushing wear. Pad wear or rotor warp can be felt through the pedal, or kind of jerky feeling. hmmmm jerky. Anyway, let us know how it works out. At least you are changing "piece of mind" parts!
 
Check the axle bearing retaining nuts (hub nuts). They like to work their way loose and cause the frontend to wander or wobble. Do a search on this site. Some guy posted about a new brand of hub nuts that he says will not loosen up like the stock ones. I can't remember the brand name. They need to be incredibly tight though, like over 150 ft./lbs. No kidding. The driver's side is especially problematic because of the direction your wheels are rotating when the truck is moving forward.
 
If the inner lock pin is through the retaining ring its almost impossible for the outer to back off. Thats if you get it tight to start with. The outer I mean.
 
my hub nuts were just a tad loose so I tightened them to the next slot for the cotter pin to go through. This is on my 79 c20 pickup. I replaced both front calipers, brake lines, and one hard line. I had a hard pull to the right when braking and a side to side wobble when braking hard at high speed. The passenger side caliper didn't seem to be retracting enough.

After most of my weekend and 9 trips to the auto store, I finished it and the pull is gone. the front driver's side hose from Oreilly/Kragen was bent the wrong way (the solid portion at the caliper). I check multiple hoses and they were all wrong. On the net it showed that autozone didn't carry the hose, but after going into the store I found out that they do.
 
Seems like the 2wd front hubs and stuff are even harder to get right than the 4wd sometimes. My previous post was a little misleading. I meant that the only outer nut on each side needs to be really tight. The inner one should just be snug enough to preload the wheel bearing. If it's too tight then the wheel won't be able to spin easily and the bearing probably won't last long. I jacked my truck up enough to get the wheels off the ground and found that the wheel would wiggle a little, almost like it would if it had a bad ball joint. I think this was contributing to the wandering and tire wear issues I was having. I tightened up the outer nut on each side and the wheels didn't wiggle anymore.
 
I noticed the same wiggle in my rotors/hubs when I started to work on my brakes. After tightening the spindle nuts it went away. The wheels were still fairly easy to turn by hand after tightening the nuts, so I am guessing I didn't go too far, but having that play has to be bad. Today my truck seemed to wander less on the road and replacing the calipers and hoses on the front made a huge difference. No more pull. Now I just need to have my mechanic buddy double check all of the front end parts to make sure they are ok. I had most of them replaced two years ago, but the suspension guy said that two of them were still ok so we left them. I just can't remember which ones were not changed.
 
New calipers made a big difference on mine too. Plus they were really cheap too, about a third of the price of the ones I had to put on my 2000 Ford pickup. New brake lines can also make a world of difference, especially if you get the stainless steel ones.
 
i fixed it! it was the passenger side rotor...severly chewed up. for some reason, passenger side had new pads but driver side did not. replaced rotors and pads and no more "death" wobble as i like to call it! by the way, i was not wanting to repack the hubs but once i got into it, it was easier than i thought it would be.
 
Yeah, it seems like the 4wd hubs and rotors are less of a pain in the butt than 2wd stuff lots of times. I was surprised how simple the front axle on my truck is to work on. Just keep those stupid outer spindle nuts tight!
 
I have the same problem that started last week. How did you get the rotors off? I've done brakes on plenty of other vehicles but I just don't see how to remove the rotors on mine. I read somewhere that heavy duty vehicles have the rotors pressed on to the hub. I don't think that's how mine is, probably just super rusted so it seems like all one piece. Also, where did you buy the new rotors? I bought almost $1000 of parts from O'Reilly's which included hubs, rotors, calipers, brake lines, a bunch of other stuff and 100% of the parts were wrong.
 
SPIRK said:
I have the same problem that started last week. How did you get the rotors off? I've done brakes on plenty of other vehicles but I just don't see how to remove the rotors on mine. I read somewhere that heavy duty vehicles have the rotors pressed on to the hub. I don't think that's how mine is, probably just super rusted so it seems like all one piece. Also, where did you buy the new rotors? I bought almost $1000 of parts from O'Reilly's which included hubs, rotors, calipers, brake lines, a bunch of other stuff and 100% of the parts were wrong.
Click to expand...

What front axle do you have? If it's on the V1500 Suburban in your signature line, do this: Remove the hub. The hub cover is held on by six torx or allen head bolts. Use some snap ring pliers to remove the snap ring that's on the end of the stub shaft. Now look for a metal ring around the inner part of the rotor. Use a screwdriver or something to take it out. If you have auto-locking hubs, there will be a lot of parts inside the hub (springs, etc.). Take two of the bolts that were holding the outside cover on and screw them into two of the holes in the hub body about half way and pull the hub body out of the rotor. Remove the brake caliper by taking out the two pins that hold it on with an allen wrech. After you have the hub off, you'll need a special spindle nut socket to get the spindle nuts off. O'Reilly's will have it. The spindle nut will have four slots in it (for the outer one). There are two of them (the inner one has about eight teeth but uses the same socket to remove it) and they're seperated by a flat washer with a bunch of little holes in it and four tabs on the outer edge of it. This washer can be taken out with a pair of pliers. After you take these nuts off the spindle, you'll be able to take the rotor off. You may have to tap it lightly with a hammer. You'll see the wheel bearing inside the hub. It will probably fall out when you take the rotor off.
 
Go to Autozone or NAPA for the rotors and brake parts. O'Reilly's always gives me the wrong parts. The rotors are cheap. You could take them to a machine shop and have them trued if they're still thick enough. The machine shop will measure them for you.
 
I got almost all the way through that process about a year ago but I got scared that I was going to screw it up so I put it all back together. I was trying to change the bearings at the time but now that it needs brakes I don't really have a choice but to do it. Unfortunately I can't do any kind of work on a vehicle at my apartment so I may have to take it to someone. Any idea about the going rate for this kind of work?
 
Dude, most shops will charge about about $90 or more per hour for labor. The labor standard for changing all the brake parts is probably three hours (I'm just guessing). Do the math. You'd be better off finding a buddy's house and seeing if he'll let you do the work there. Even if it's your first time, it won't take more than a couple of hours.

Don't be afraid to work on your truck. I get nervous about this kind of crap too, but on these vehicles, most everything is engineered to be pretty tough. You'd have to try to screw something up. Just remember to replace the pads when you get the new rotors. Use a C clamp to fully retract the calipers so you can get them over the rotors with the new pads. Also, when you tighten those spindle nuts back down, get the inside one just tight enough so that there's no wobble when you try to wiggle the wheel around (before you set it back down off the jackstand). It doesn't need to be too tight. Then put the little ring back on and put the outer lock nut on as tight as you can get it. Get it really tight or it will come loose and let the truck wander all over the road and wear the tires on the edges.

Do you have automatic or manual hubs?
 
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