[DeTomaso] Wilwood Wobble GONE!

[MikeLDrew at aol.com]

Hi guys,

I just got home from a quick jaunt in the Pantera, and I am thrilled to 
report that my Wilwood-induced wobble is completely and totally gone!

Some may recall that a few weeks ago, I put a dial indicator on my rotors and 
discovered that despite the fact I had turned the front ones only 400 miles 
or so earlier, they were both warped to the tune of .008" (manufacturers allow 
a tolorence of only about .002" before calling for the rotors to be turned).  
It was far worse in the rear, where the rotors are mounted inside the axles 
and thus aren't easily removed.  One side was out .015" and the other an 
astounding .023"!

Fortunately, Garth Rodericks turned me onto the fact that Les Schwab tire 
stores have machinery that allows them to turn the rotors on the car.  This is 
truly the best way to turn rotors, because theoretically you could have a 
perfectly flat rotor in your hands, but if the various components its mounted to 
have slight variation, it manifests itself as undesirable runout.

This machine has a bit of magic inside.  It is bolted to the hub in place of 
the wheel, and then it turns the entire axle and rotor assembly.  Various 
sensors detect irregularities in about seventeen different planes--not only runout 
of the rotor, but also of the hub too, and then it comes up with a solution 
that will cancel out all these irregularities.

They had to take a ton of material off my rear rotors, which arguably 
shortens their life.  But what good is a long-lived crooked brake rotor?  I was quite 
pleased to see that the hat itself seems perfectly true, and the distortion 
was limited solely to the rotor.  Whether that is due to poor manufacturing, or 
if the mounting bolts between the hat and rotor were torqued unevenly, I 
don't know.  Furthermore, at this point I don't care--all I know is that my rotors 
are flat for the first time since I bought the car!

The slight pulsing and vibration is now totally gone. :>)

Here's a photo of this beastie in action:

http://members.aol.com/mikeldrew/BrakeLathe.jpg

I know there are some of you (Jim Wallace most notably) who are borderline 
suicidal because they can't get the vibration out of their Wilwood-equipped 
cars.  If you haven't tried this, you need to give it a shot.

It cost more than turning them off the car; $79 for each end of the car.  But 
it's money well-spent in my opinion!

Mike<BR><BR><BR>**************************************<BR> See what's free at 
http://www.aol.com.</HTML>