Re: UFO's and Control Arm Bushings

[crossley family <crossley@northwest.com>]

Wolff wrote:
> 
> Ok folks, I have searched the archives for "UFO" and read every post.
> Yikes, I am a q-head.
> 
> I am trying to find out if anyone has actually replaced their control
> arm bushings to eliminate steering wheel shimmy on a UFO equiped Q. I
> get no noticeable brake pedal vibration during braking while the
> steering wheel is shaking. Terry Grosse at KVR suggested that if you
> have no bounce in the pedal, then the problem is not the rotors. 

Wolff,
Sounds like the symptoms that my UFOs had after their last PIR track
event.  I found that the rotor friction faces had great deposits of pad
friction material on them.  The rotors ran true but when the brakes were
applied, the variable friction surface caused the steering wheel to
oscillate, but with no attendant pedal pulse.
My fix was to grind the exposed rotor faces lightly with a disc grinder
and an 80 grit disk. Take a look at page 46.26 in your Bentley to see
the technique. The faces that are inside the bell are tougher to do.  I
finally ended up using whip stick on a pneumatic grinder, which I stuck
through holes in the bell.  Slow job, but it got rid of my problem. 
BTW, this was done with about 130K miles on the clock and did not
involve control arm bushing work. This was my last UFO Band-Aid prior to
dumping the whole system for one of Terry's wonderful systems.  
HTH, 
 Kent Crossley, Portland,Or.
'91 200q (mine)
'93 90CSq (hers)