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Front brake question 240Z


Triumph26

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I have a question about my front disk brakes, bear with me here. Brakes work great when cold. The Z stops straight with no brake fade/pulling etc. But once the car (and brakes) is warm, I get pretty bad pulsing under medium to hard braking. Seems to be more on the passenger side. By "bad pulsing" I mean that I can feel it significantly in the steering wheel. The car pulls to the right slightly too.

 

My first thought is that the rotor is warped. But wouldn't that show the symptoms cold too? I don't know if or when these rotors have been turned, although brand new (OEM) rotors are only about $50 ea. Thoughts?

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Make sure the caliper bolts are tight, it can do crazy shit if they're even a cunt hair loose. Then inspect pads, rotors for odd wear and bleed the system. The calipers on my zx would loosen slightly over time, locktite helped.

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The pulsing can be from a warped rotor but likely just high spots from uneven wear. Old pad material (back in the day) used to transfer to the rotor if the pads were very new and were subjected to extreme use and then parked without letting the rotors cool down. Pad friction material would would 'attach itself' to the rotor and when turned the pads would ride over this imprint and drag. The rotor might also wear unevenly too from this. 

 

Today's pads are better I believe but when I ran new pads I hotted them up pretty good and made sure i didn't stop for another 15 min. Generally though disc brakes grab and hold better when warmed up. The rotor will also expand as it heats up exaggerating the high and low spots. 

 

You can remove the rotors and have them turned but find out if the ubs need to be left on or rotors removed from them. Then there's the cost for the machining. It might be a better move to just get new ones. Non vented rotors are as simple as they get and can't be that much. I had an old Dodge Omni and it was $18 to turn the rotor and new ones a were $20... do the math.

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Thanks guys.  I'm going to take the wheels off tomorrow (I hope) and go through the front brakes to see if Dolomite's suggestions are the case.  Lord knows how old the brake pads are, so replacing them may be in the cards.  I have a vacuum tool so changing out the brake fluid is pretty easily done.  If the problem persists after going through them, I'll look into having the rotors turned or possibly replacing them.  

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  • 2 weeks later...

EBC is big into turning rotors on the vehicle to the point that they designed EQ to do this, supposedly available at Pep Boys also. They even state there is no such thing as warped rotors.

"MANY top car builders skim discs from NEW after install as part of their fitting procedure. These include Jaguar, Porsche, BMW, Honda, Landrover, the list is endless and shown here: pro-cut history"

http://ebcbrakes.com/articles/how-to-solve-brake-vibration-permanently/

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