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On 23 Oct 2002, at 21:16, Mark Healey wrote: > I left my appartment and got on the freeway. I started getting pretty > scary shakes in the steering wheel. I arrived at my first > destination, did some shopping and got onto another freeway to head > towards another store, no shaking until I stopped at a light for a > while. When I started moving again, shake city. Did more shopping, > got on the road towarda another store, no shaking until I hit another > light. After I was done with the third store I decided to only use > the hand brake until I got on the freeway again. I made it all the > way home without any shakes. Here are some things to check. Work your way thru this llst in this order and stop when you find something suspicious. This really doesn't sound like a brake problem to me. 1) With the car on the ground, grab the top of either front tire and shake it rather roughly from side to side. Do yoo feel something banging/knocking at each extreme? If so, get a friend to shake it while you get a flashlight, stick your head in front of the tire, and look at the joint where the upper trailing arm comes out of the axle beam. If you can see that arm moving in and out any visible amount, then you have a loose upper sway bar, which you must fix. 2) Check each brake drum and disk for one that is a LOT hotter than the others. CAREFUL, a hot one can really burn your fingers. If you find a really not one skip to # 4. 3) Check the steering damper and its rubber bushing in the Pittman arm. You'll have to unbolt the fixed end of the steering damper to make sure that it still has "friction" over its whole stroke, especially in the center, when you pump it back and forth. The bushing in the Pittman arm must be tight. if it's loose the steering damper can't do its job. These are almost always shot. 4) Make sure that there is a bit of free play in your brake pedal and that it is returning ALL the way back to its stop when you release the pedal. 5) Open a bleed valve on each wheel and see if brake fluid comes freely out of each one, just under the influence of gravity. If one doesn't, remove the bleed valve and make sure that the passage IN the bleed valve is free and open (I already did this on anything I rebuilt.) If fluid still doesn't come out freely then the flexible rubber hose to this wheel probably needs to be replaced. Let us know what you find. - Jim Adney jadney@vwtype3.org Madison, WI 53711-3054 USA ------------------------------------------------ To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <type3-off@vwtype3.org> For more help, see http://vwtype3.org/list/