Omega brakes

My omega still momentarily pulls to the drivers side when lightly applying the brakes. This has been going on for a while now and even after bleeding them fitting front new callipers and new hoses its still the same. After the mot test where the rollers say all is well the mechanic says there is a definate sensation on a road test of pulling to the right. The strange thing is that this only happens under light braking. If you brake hard it stops in a straight line. If you brake with your hands of the wheel it bakes in a straight line. If you brake lightly with your hands off the wheel it stops in a straight line but you can see the steering wheel move momentarily to the left. But if you brake lightly while holding the wheel you can feel the car pulling to the right before it brakes in a straight line. By the wat at the mot the suspension bushes were all passed as OK and the car was fully 4 wheel aligned 18 month ago and as im the only driver i know there has been no kerbing etc.

Reply to
Gary Millar
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In news:ondEd.423$ snipped-for-privacy@newsfe6-gui.ntli.net, Gary Millar decided to enlighten our sheltered souls with a rant as follows

Tyre pressures? Rear brake binding? tracking? weak front shocks?

18 months is a long long time after tracking adjustment.
Reply to
Pete M

Reply to
Gary Millar

have your brakes tested on a brake tested

john

Reply to
Mad Mechanic

Reply to
Gary Millar

================ Try swapping the front wheels over. It's possible that you've got a minor buckle or other fault in one wheel which doesn't show up during tracking. This is a simple check and if it shows no difference in behaviour at least it won't cost anything to do.

I would think that if you had a worn bush somewhere in the suspension / steering it would be more likely to produce an effect during heavy rather than light breaking.

Although you said that the effect is felt at the front it's still possible that there's a slight imbalance in the rear brakes. I recently fitted new rear linings to my car (self adjusting brakes) and there was a very definite sideways pull felt at the steering until the self adjusting mechanism sorted itself out. Try checking your rear brake adjustment with both wheels off the ground together and adjust if necessary. If they're self-adjusting try re-setting the self adjusters to give them a fresh start. One of them may be siezed.

Cic.

Reply to
Cicero

Reply to
Gary Millar

=============== A temporary swap would still be worth a try to see if it shows up any fault. A few short stop / start tests would show up any discrepancy (if any) and you can immediately change back to ensure that your tyres are safe. You might also do the same with the rear wheels to see if anything changes. It's a process of trial and error really - tedious and frustrating but worthwhile when you find the solution.

Cic.

Reply to
Cicero

Reply to
Gary Millar

Try changing front to back then

Reply to
Taz

Is this light pullingonly first thing in the morning (or when the car is cold if you happen to work nights...)?

Although tricky to do, and requiring both luck and skill, from a cold start try to drive 2-3 miles without much using the brakes, GENTLY pull over and then carefully feel the wheels to see if one feels noticeably warmer than the other. (but not necessarily hot). next, run up to speed-30mph is ok-then gently brake almost to a stop. Take your foot off the pedal and let the car come to rest naturally on level ground. does the car stop smoothly, or does it give a (very) minor lurch as it comes to a stop?

Based on other postings in this thread, my gut feeling would be you have a brake caliper sticking ever so slightly. it doesnt pull under heavy braking so I dont think its a bad problem. Although front or back binding can cause pulling, IMHO for rear brakes to bind bad enough to start pulling, you would start noticing bad smells from the car. If you dont know the smell of burning brakes, then good for you! Although you never forget the smell, its not on the list of 50 things to do/smell before you die. I dont know what kind of calipers you have there, but it was the bane of my life on many old bikes of mine with a floating caliper front brakes, where you only have a piston on one side and it pulls the back side of the caliper against the disc. Kinda like a 'G' clamp. only unlike drum brakes there isnt actually any force available to retract the caliper. sure, the withdrawal of the master cylender piston when you take your foot of the pedal will (should!) marginally withdraw the slave pistons at all 4 wheels, but if one is sticking just slightly then it will tend to withdraw the other three just that little bit more. Also, the caliper might not be floating free from the back end, with the same results. If you dont have a floating caliper, ie you have pistons pushing the pads on both sides of the disc then I would look to see if a pad is stuck in slight contact with the disc. simply remove (Are you reading this Mr Haynes? I once had a good laugh when I read that in one of your books!) the pads, clean the edges up in an appropriate manner untill they are smooth and clean and also the corresponding area of the caliper, so the pads move smoothly. replace with just a lick of grease on the metal edges of the pad (for chrissakes make sure you use the proper high melting point stuff for the job, not the first pot that comes to hand) then put back together and road test. before you do, remember that brake dust can be dangerous to your health, so dont go sniffing it and dont forget to tighten ALL your wheelnuts.

Sorry for going on at some length, especially if this is all old stuff to you, but remember that other people read these posts and (hopefully) learn from them.

Cheers

Mike

BTW, forgot to add that if you have one pad noticeably thinner than the rest then odds are thats the culprit. if the problem turns out to be a sticking piston then you might have to spend some wonga. But get back to us first.

Reply to
Mike

=============== One minor amendment to the above suggestions from 'Mike'. The rear brake need not be 'binding' to cause a pull. One rear brake may be adjusted very slightly more closely than the other but still not in permanent contact with the drum. In this case one brake would 'bite' slightly before the other thus producing a pull which would be felt under gentle braking but would probably be masked under heavier braking.

Cic.

Reply to
Cicero

Good point, And I agree completely, but rears dragging have to be a lot worse than fronts to produce noticeable effects. Do omegas have rear drums? By comparison the rear brake/handbrake on my old vectra looks like it was dreamed up by the apprentice on a monday morning just after a trip to the lav with a copy of last weeks sport. Dunno what he was thinking about, but its a right **** of a design.

Mike

Reply to
Mike

Reply to
Gary Millar

In news:8kjEd.686$ snipped-for-privacy@newsfe5-win.ntli.net, Gary Millar decided to enlighten our sheltered souls with a rant as follows

No probs, but learn to snip, and don't top post ;-)

Reply to
Pete M

They have both rear drums and rear discs, best of both worlds :-) The drum bit is handbrake only. I can only assume the reason is to stop the Citroen problem of when the discs cool down the car rolls away and crashes (for those people who don't bother to keep the car in gear or P when stationary!). I've had a seized piston on a rear disc which caused the other sides pad to wear down very quickly indeed!

Will

Reply to
Will Reeve

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