re: Gas & Brakes

[Phil Rose <pjrose@servtech.com>]

>Date: Sun, 7 Mar 1999 22:40:28 -0500
>From: "Jon" <jwilliam@cyberzone.net>
>Subject: Gas & Brakes


>2. When I had my front end repairs done (on the car) my mechanic
>warned me that the front rotors were warped and that I would continue
>to get a shudder in the steering wheel when braking.  He assured me
>that it was not a safety issue but it's driving me ape-sh*t.  I'll be
>getting a hydraulic jack and stands this week and I'll have access to a
>second car to take the rotors to have them turned.  My question is
>when I force the calipers open to get at the rotors, will this necessitate
>me taking the top off the reservoir to avoid too much pressure on the
>brake line and will I have to bleed the lines before re-assembling
>everything?  Also, if anyone has a website or tips for this, please let
>me know, as I haven't done this before and figure that functioning
>brakes would be a good thing to have.  Searching the archives for
>"rotors" only yielded about 650 items and I'd rather not have to slog
>through all that.
>
>

Jon,

Last year, when it was new-to-me, my '91 200q (with converted, *non*UFO
brakes) had very severe steering-wheel shudder during any braking at
moderate-to-high speeds. Before I tried replacing the fairly new rotors
(BTW, turning Audi rotors is usually not considered advisable, especially
if they've seen much wear), I decided to try the "de-warping" method I saw
advised on the qlist.

This involved doing some sustained, hard braking to get the rotors quite
hot--then cruising a while to cool them down, or carefully avoiding _any_
brake pedal application while stopped and the rotors are cooling down. I
did this every now and then, and it worked--eventually! There was some
immediate improvement, and little by little over a period of *weeks* the
brakes continued to improve, until now there is virtually no symptom of
warpage (or shudder of any kind). I was probably more conservative about
doing this than necessary. With more persistance, I suppose I may have been
able to produce major improvement within a day or two. Worth a try, if you
haven't done so already.



Phil Rose				Rochester, NY
'91 200q				mailto:pjrose@servtech.com
'89 100