Steering wheel shake, smoking right wheel

[MyToy]

Hey, got a good one:

I exhausted the search engine on this one and hate to post a new thread but.........

Coming back from Orlando and about 15 minutes into the ride I noticed my steering wheel was beginning to shake, like out of balanced tires. I also felt I needed more power to keep her at 70MPH.
The shaking then got so bad my temp gauge needle was shaking almost full scale. So I applied brakes to pull over that really made it shake much more, where I had to let go of the brakes and let her coast to a stop.
Walked around the front and all looked fine until I saw smoke coming out of the right hand wheel. I was still 100 miles from home. So I got back in, pushed on the brakes just to see if that felt different and it did but very little, maybe spongy but not much. So I said what the heck, let's give it a go. Started up and she was fine the remainder of the trip. Like zero problems. I took the left wheel off to see if I could see anything and it was all normal except I may need pads soon.
Drove it another 500 miles with no issues but then yesterday it did it again.
When this happens it does not pull to one side as if I have a brake pad engaging all the time.
Has anyone had this problem. I could do a total brake job but I just cannot be sure that is it.

Weird...........:no:

[Carbonized]

Shacking: something is out of balance or binding. Smoking: something is overheating from chafing or binding. Not pulling to one side and intermittent : very weird indeed! You're right, it might not be the brakes.

OK, just throwing things to the ceiling and see what sticks. I had bad vibrations once on my Dodge RAM, I could barely hold the steering wheel and I could see the hood jumping up and down on the driver side from 55 to 65 mph and only for the first 10, 15 minutes of a drive. Turned out that my good looking well threaded tires were the victims of old age, dry rot, and after a couple of days parked they would "flat spot". It took some heat and centrifugal force to bring them back to round, until I parked the truck again for a few days and the problem reappeared again. But I never saw any smoke!

[Flecker]

Few things that come to mind...

warped rotor (typically only feel this when you brake though)
wheel bearing/s failing... they don't always squeel.
one of the hubs left in the locked position (4wd only)
idler arm going bad
Alignment... bad toe in/ toe out

With smoke coming from the front wheel though, I am leaning towards wheel bearing OR something is possibly caught up in there causing a bit of binding.

Hard to know without seeing it.

[Ace MM]

Few things that come to mind...

warped rotor (typically only feel this when you brake though)
wheel bearing/s failing... they don't always squeal
With smoke coming from the front wheel though, I am leaning towards wheel bearing OR something is possibly caught up in there causing a bit of binding.

How's the brake fluid?
I'd check the brakes and bearings first to rule them out.

Ive had a bearing seize without warning(noise or vibration)

[MyToy]

Thanks guys. Well I wish it were the tires but they are a new set of coopers with less than 3K on this. Plus I drove it about 20 miles before it occurred. But good shot at it Carbonized.

The bearing idea sounds a bit more that ACE brought up. Although it is so intermittent it would have all these symptoms

I will try to pull off the wheel today and take a look.

Thanks again guys.

MT

[Burntboot]

Given that its not pulling I would concentrate on bearings.

Had one instance of weird intermittent, hard to explain and diagnose issue on an old GM once.
It would come and go and drove me nuts for about 2 months.
It never made any noise, just weird intermittent vibrations.
In the end, the RF wheel seized while driving (fun stuff)
Downside was I also had to replace the spindle (not fun)

[originalkwyjibo]

Don't rule out the tires just because they are new. In fact i would consider them more suspect if it didn't do this at all before the tires were replaced. If you take it back to the tire shop and explain the situation, they should be able/willing to check the tires on the balancer to be certain it isn't them. Just make sure they check them all.

[Carbonized]

Bad shock??? = Wheel bouncing like a beach ball, or more like an air plane doing a 1000 landing a minutes = shake and smoke! Doesn't explain the intermittence

Drive shaft CV Joi.... never mind , yours is rear wheel drive!

Wouldn't a bearing going bad show in an unusual tire wear due to out of spec camber and or toe? And a bad bearing does not rebuild itself between drives. There comes the intermittency again!

BTW a brand new tire that spent 3 years in a hot warehouse is old and could be dry rotted, check the date of production on the tire side wall .

[Flecker]

We can only guess...

But you need friction to make smoke. And if it was in fact smoking, then it boils down to brakes, or bearing. It's the only things I can see making enough heat to cause some smoke.

[originalkwyjibo]

And a bad bearing does not rebuild itself between drives. There comes the intermittency again!

I had a front bearing on my f350 4x4 give intermittent problems. It had a noise and vibration that seemed bearing related now and then but was never significantly loose so I assumed it was coming from somewhere else(Didn't want to take the time to pull locking hubs and such to check them if I didn't have too either). When it finally went completely, I was missing multiple rollers and the cage for the outer bearing was twisted like an overachieving pretzel. My theory was that the intermittent noise was a loose roller being ground to a sparkly paste in my grease. Once it was ground up the noise went away until the next one turned sideways. As was Burntboot's experience, it took the spindle with it.

MT, your best bet may be to drive it until it acts up again and then immediately pull over someplace safe and check hub temps, jack it up and spin the wheels to check for binding, and check for bearing play. You could visually check the tires too while you're spinning them. Look for lumps that may be occuring with heat.

[Flecker]

I had a front bearing on my f350 4x4 give intermittent problems. It had a noise and vibration that seemed bearing related now and then but was never significantly loose so I assumed it was coming from somewhere else(Didn't want to take the time to pull locking hubs and such to check them if I didn't have too either). When it finally went completely, I was missing multiple rollers and the cage for the outer bearing was twisted like an overachieving pretzel. My theory was that the intermittent noise was a loose roller being ground to a sparkly paste in my grease. Once it was ground up the noise went away until the next one turned sideways. As was Burntboot's experience, it took the spindle with it.

MT, your best bet may be to drive it until it acts up again and then immediately pull over someplace safe and check hub temps, jack it up and spin the wheels to check for binding, and check for bearing play. You could visually check the tires too while you're spinning them. Look for lumps that may be occuring with heat.


All of this ^^^^

Will get you in the right direction of diagnosing. On a 2 wheel drive it's pretty easy to pop the cover off the wheel hub and take a peek inside to see the condition of the grease and bearing. Hope ya get it MyToy.

https://i.imgur.com/a8d1XGf.png

[Carbonized]

MT, your best bet may be to drive it until it acts up again and then immediately pull over someplace safe and check hub temps, jack it up and spin the wheels to check for binding, and check for bearing play. You could visually check the tires too while you're spinning them. Look for lumps that may be occuring with heat.

If you have smoke at that time try and use your nose to identify the smell. Rubber, brake materials and grease, all have a distinctive smell. (Easy for me to say, I could do that in my sleep) Metal to metal friction heat, without grease, is almost odorless like some rock getting stuck between the brake caliper and the rim. Speaking of.... have you checked for annular scratches on the inside of the rim? Long shot but you never know :wnk:

[MyToy]

Wow, all good stuff guys.

Well I took the replacement bearing route, since that is so easy to do. Besides I really wanted to see what the pads looked like with the calipers off. So I pull the calipers off and I notice this was one of those cars that came with noise screamers when you pads get to thin. Also very cool but they had a ways to go before they would scream so I am thinking by pads are fair.
Then I had to take off the back plate that the caliper attaches to. After studying this for about 30 minutes I realized I clearly did not have the same van that is in the service manual. In there it shows two distinct bolts, one on top and one on the bottom to pull off the plate and get to the rotor removal. Nope, not mine!
In fact after removing two other bolts on the bottom knuckle and didn't do anything I realized I was over my head. Check TVC all over for someone who had one of these but never found anything. So the entire afternoon was blown as I put it all back together in disappointment.

Since I still have a clunk that appears under my foot when I make are hard stop or a fast start I thought I would look a bit at that. I tried rocking the tires both left and right and up and down to see if I could see or feel any play and there was none.

So my thought is to bring her into a front end guy for the clunk and have him change the rotors, bearings, and pads since I really can't do any front end work like this.

Will keep all posted.

By the way, there was no sign of anything burnt. When it did smoke it did don't t think it smelled like brake liners. The rim was hotter than hell, so maybe it was the grease.

Thanks for all the input guys. We will find this and add it to our archives for sure

MT

[Flecker]

If the wheel was pretty warm/ hot, then I am putting another vote towards the bearing... it's a symptom. Hope it works out man, and keep us posted!

[MyToy]

Just another update here.

I replaced both inner and outer bearings and new grease. Got about 500 miles on her and she seems to be fine. But this happen before, so we shall see.
Cross your fingers.

MT

[Carbonized]

How did the old bearings look?
I hope that does it for you once and for all :thmbup:

[kamesama980]

Surprising nobody's said more about the brakes. caliper slide pins can intermittently lock like that, so can deteriorated 30 year old brake hoses acting like check valves. I've replaced all 4 front calipers between my 2 subaru bajas due to sticking slide pins. The 03 will act exactly as the OP described: start to stick, drag (which exacerbates the sticking), shaking from the rotor warping till it almost locks up, then when it's cooled to take the tire off and troubleshoot or the next time I went to drive it was fine.

[MyToy]

Hey Carbonized:

The shop did not say anything about them nor did I get them back.
I may have to go back over there. So if I do I will ask

MT

[Burntboot]

I always inspect the old parts, its the only way of knowing if your diagnosis was correct.

If they scored, burnt or discoloured, then you can be pretty sure you've found your culprit.
If however they looked "new" then you have more diagnosing to do.

K-980 does make a good point about calliper sliders, they can indeed cause intermittent problems.
As far as flex lines go, they too can cause problems but aren't usually intermittent.

[Carbonized]

I recently took my wife Civic to the stealership for service, while I was waiting, the tech send me a video of him removing the AC filter zoomed on it and asked me if i would authorize replacement, same for engine air filter, I was impressed:thmbup:. Turns out that they noted in our file that at each of my previous visit I asked them to leave any replaced part in the trunk for my inspection :LOL2:

[MyToy]

I agree, stupid on my part. But there were other things far more important that they were doing.

It seemed like the power steering pump went south. Loud grinding noise coming from the pump. Replaced the pump and it was the same. It turned out to be the large hose to the pump had claps inside restricting ADF to the pump. So it saved me on the pump.

So far I have over 1000 miles on the new bearings without any incident.

MT

[MyToy]

And the saga continues:

Well it looks like it was not the bearings. It started again only this time I was not on the highway. I was on a side street going only 20mph. It did not vibrate at this speed but I could feel the engine was working hard to get past 20. So I stuck it in natural with no brakes and she came to a stop as if the breaks were on. Got out and looked and both front brakes were smoking again. So it looks like the calipers are expanding on their own!!!

Never saw this before. Anyone have this experience? Maybe master cylinder or boost system but it seems to only show on the front brakes.

Any clues????

[kamesama980]

And the saga continues:

Well it looks like it was not the bearings. It started again only this time I was not on the highway. I was on a side street going only 20mph. It did not vibrate at this speed but I could feel the engine was working hard to get past 20. So I stuck it in natural with no brakes and she came to a stop as if the breaks were on. Got out and looked and both front brakes were smoking again. So it looks like the calipers are expanding on their own!!!

Never saw this before. Anyone have this experience? Maybe master cylinder or boost system but it seems to only show on the front brakes.

Any clues????

Did you get the brackets with the new calipers? Are the slides on the new calipers properly lubed (sparingly)? Both my Subaru Bajas needed front brake work because the slide pins stick causing the brakes to drag intermittently. (lower pin on all 4 was seized. replaced 2 altogether and between the 4 loose brackets, repaired the other 2)

How old are the brake hoses? I've had lines come apart internally and act as a check valve holding fluid pressure in the calipers. This can happen to both rubber and metal sections of lines. Since it's in both wheels, it may be in the center common line or in both sides independently.

Ever changed the brake fluid? Brake fluid absorbs water over time but if it absorbs enough, it can allow/cause rust in the steel brake lines and rubber degradation in the soft lines leading to the above situation.

If it's cold enough and the brake fluid is old enough and has absorbed enough water, you can get ice crystals in the lines that can A. block flow and B mechanically damage the lines from the sharp corners.

[Burntboot]

Sorry to hear MT
A little more detail might help.
How long had you been driving, what was the trip like (stop and go traffic or hardly any braking)?
Does it only happen on longer drives or only after repeated applications?
What is the repair history on the braking system?

The easy test is to raise the wheel(s) and crack a bleeder, if fluid squirts out and the wheel releases, its in the hydraulic system.
If there's no pressure (gravity bleed) and it doesn't release then it's calliper related

If it is under pressure, flex lines will be the culprit 98% of the time (I have never experienced a steel line plugging)

[MyToy]

Yeah it really sucks. It normally has happened only when I was on the highway. Starts off with shaking steering wheel then a need for more throttle as if I was going up hill. Pull over and she is smoking but here is the thing, it is only the front left and right. If it was calipers I would have thought the likely hood of it being both at the same time was rare. So the only common point to it all is the master cylinder.
At least that is my take on it.

I have no brake history except the original owner really had his act together with this van. Every detail he informed me on what he did and how it was. Very meticulous.


Are the flex lines that ones that couple the caliper to the chassis?

But both at the same time?

I hate to go in there and replace the MC right now. I have so many other things going on. :wall:

Thanks for your insight, always very helpful.

mt

[MyToy]

Did you get the brackets with the new calipers? Are the slides on the new calipers properly lubed (sparingly)? Both my Subaru Bajas needed front brake work because the slide pins stick causing the brakes to drag intermittently. (lower pin on all 4 was seized. replaced 2 altogether and between the 4 loose brackets, repaired the other 2)

How old are the brake hoses? I've had lines come apart internally and act as a check valve holding fluid pressure in the calipers. This can happen to both rubber and metal sections of lines. Since it's in both wheels, it may be in the center common line or in both sides independently.

Ever changed the brake fluid? Brake fluid absorbs water over time but if it absorbs enough, it can allow/cause rust in the steel brake lines and rubber degradation in the soft lines leading to the above situation.

If it's cold enough and the brake fluid is old enough and has absorbed enough water, you can get ice crystals in the lines that can A. block flow and B mechanically damage the lines from the sharp corners.

I have not replaced the calipers yet. They were removed when the bearings were replaced but this has been happing long before the bearings since that was one suspect at the time.

My guess is the brake fluid has been in there for 25 years as this van was stored that long. Is there a way to tell if there is rust in there? I guess it wouldn't hurt changing out the lines. Are these standard or do they have to be made?

Great Input kamesama980!

[Burntboot]

Thats why its important to crack the bleeders, to find out if the system is being pressurized or not.

Brake fluid should be changed every 2-3 yrs regardless of mileage.
Up here in the rust belt, I have never seen a hard line get clogged with debris, they leak before they plug (at least in my experience)

Rubber will degrade and swell internally, closing off the line, sometimes there will be outward visual clues, but not usually.
Standing on the brake pedal will force fluid thru the restriction but there's nothing at the other end to push back, hence the slow build up of pressure.
More often than not, leaving it parked for a couple of days, that built up pressure slowly bleeds off and all is good, till the next long drive.

As to the callipers, the biggest problem will be at the sliders, where the rubber boots go thru the saddle bracket.
Rust will build up in the inside of that hole, which in turn pinches the rubber and increases friction on the slider bolt.
With repeated application, heat is generated and those stiff sliders stop moving all together.

I just went thru this with my Suzuki, did pads/rotors and overhauled both callipers.
Was reinstalling when I found I had trouble threading the slider pins and I had already cleaned the holes and replaced the slider rubbers.
Pulled them all apart again and found a thick layer of hard black scale on the inside of those holes.
I had to use a Dremel to remove the scale, but once clean, I was able to thread those slider pins all the way in by hand!

The difference in braking performance is night and day and yes, I installed the same brand of pads/rotors as last time!
(The brakes never pulled prior, they just always seemed a little inadequate, tended to run hot and wore fast.)

[Burntboot]

Rubber flex lines are premade and vehicle specific. (and there is one for the rear axle too, if you're feeling preventative)
Steel lines are best made on site using a flaring tool, but you really shouldn't have to go there.

Just remember, there are 5 bleeder screws!
Procedure is in the manual.

And PLEASE use line wrenches on those flare nuts, metric threaded line fittings can be hard to come by.
I go out of my way to salvage them, using anything other than line wrenches will destroy them
Regular wrenches will just round the flats and vice grips will deform the nuts out of round.

[kamesama980]

Thats why its important to crack the bleeders, to find out if the system is being pressurized or not.

Brake fluid should be changed every 2-3 yrs regardless of mileage.
Up here in the rust belt, I have never seen a hard line get clogged with debris, they leak before they plug (at least in my experience)

Rubber will degrade and swell internally, closing off the line, sometimes there will be outward visual clues, but not usually.
Standing on the brake pedal will force fluid thru the restriction but there's nothing at the other end to push back, hence the slow build up of pressure.
More often than not, leaving it parked for a couple of days, that built up pressure slowly bleeds off and all is good, till the next long drive.


^This guy has it right.

I have seen steel lines clog internally. Very rare and usually with old, nasty, waterlogged brake fluid allowing more rust inside than out. far, far more often it's the soft lines, I agree.