horrible vibration through steering wheel under braking??

jasongtr

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looking for advice and potential solutions to this. I shall give the back story too.

Bought the car off a mate (B5 RS4) and there wasn't an issue with any front end vibrations. The front brakes needed a refurb as the bells were corroded (its got a 370mm movit kit on the car)

So I have had the following done

New bells made to the same movit design
New bolts and bobbins to bolt the bells to the rotors
Rotors skimmed (including the mating face to the bells)
Calipers have been totally refurbished with new fluid and dust seals

Whilst the car was off the road I fitted a set of uprated front and rear anti roll bars too. Hotchkis front and 034 rear with subframe strengthening brackets.

I also changed the rear calipers as they were totally seized, I used a pair off my S6 as they are the same and known to be free and working.

The trouble im getting.

When the brakes are stone cold I get a light vibration.

When they have heat in them the vibration gets very bad, and under light braking with the hot brakes at 20-30mph its so bad it is undrivable almost, most of the vibration is though the steering wheel, very little if any through the pedal, I shakes the whole car and feels like im in 6th gear and about to stall (its not but that's how violent it gets)

I found if braking lightly at 20-30mph and turning the vibration lessens but is still very much there.

At higher speeds its bad again, more noticeable with light braking, stamping on the pedal its still very much there but not quite as bad.

The runout was checked and is 0.12mm on one side and 0.16mm on the other, I checked the runout on the hub faces and they are 0.01/0.02mm.

We thought it was the bells that were made out some monkey metal and deforming when hot, so I changed them back to the known good movit ones and its exactly the same.

Its also the same with old or new pads.

Someone suggested the new thicker front antiroll bar might highlight any bad bushes I have, so I disconnected the drop links and its still exactly them same.

Another thought would be air in the abs block as I had all 4 calipers off (although the rears were swapped immediately and the fronts were blocked off so not much fluid came out), also the fact the calipers have been refurbished maybe it wasn't done properly and not all 4 pistons are coming out as they should?

I don't mind spending money on the car, but im reluctant to do so unless I know its a cure, I did think of buying new discs and bells from movit but im not sure that's even the problem.

long post I know but I figured if you know what I do it should help with the ideas

cheers
 
Have you tried skimming the discs whilst on the car, and also check you have completely flat hub plate on the alloys (no paint / cracking powered coat etc).

I had similar vibrations, audi did a run out test, replacrd both bearings to no avail, I swapped out the callipers as a test still no joy, finally skimmed the discs on the car and cleaned the hub plate on the back of the alloys and it resolved my issue.
 
no the discs were skimmed on a lathe, built up and checked and ran true, bells were brand new so faces were clean, wheels clean too.

Even if it was that I guess it would be the same hot or cold, mine get very much worse when hot. A mate drove the car too today and thought I was exaggerating - its truly awful when light braking in a straight line at 20-30 mph
 
You could have just warped them, possibly skimmed too much and the discs are just to fin for the amount of heat they have to take.
 
def not warped, not had enough heat in them to do that, and they are still in tolerance for useable discs
 
I had a similar problem on my M5 ... Turned out to be a bad track rod end... I would check out the steering setup for any play...
 
thanks for the comment but I would put a lot of money on the fact its 100% brake related as nothing other the brakes were touched and it was fine before
 
In your initial comment you've listed everything that's been done to the brakes. You've practically renewed them, if they're as you describe I would say the problem lies elsewhere....assuming all caliper and disc bolts are torqued up I would be checking all steering and suspension joints/mounts/bushes and also a good visual inspection of the caliper mounts themselves to make sure there are no cracks at the mounting points. A bit far fetched maybe but worth a check..
 
ive had the bells re-made by someone else and they are fine now, fitted them today, the first company to make them was GODSPEED, and quite frankly they were not only inaccurate but made from substandard materials as they were deforming when torqueing them up and the anodising was simply shocking - never again will I even contemplate using such a garbage company
 
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