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Car Pulling To Left When Braking

1072 Views 13 Replies 6 Participants Last post by  worldwidewebs, 
W
I've just had a set of Gaz Gold Pros fitted and geo'd with WIM's Nurburgring settings and at the same time had a new set of OEM discs and yellowstuff pads installed (all done by a local quality garage).

The car feels stable apart from when braking from speed as it wants to pull to the left. I checked the fitting of the rear pads this morning and all looks fine and another test drive gave the same result.

I'm going to struggle to get the car back to the garage before my first track day, so any ideas what could be the problem? I'd like to sort it this weekend if possible.

Cheers
Andy
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Yetidragon
worldwidewebs said:
I've just had a set of Gaz Gold Pros fitted and geo'd with WIM's Nurburgring settings and at the same time had a new set of OEM discs and yellowstuff pads installed (all done by a local quality garage).

The car feels stable apart from when braking from speed as it wants to pull to the left. I checked the fitting of the rear pads this morning and all looks fine and another test drive gave the same result.

I'm going to struggle to get the car back to the garage before my first track day, so any ideas what could be the problem? I'd like to sort it this weekend if possible.

Cheers
Andy
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Mine was pulling to the right under braking, had my allignment done by rodders in sheffield which seems to have go rid of it.

how long have you had the brakes fitted? maybe one is taking longer to bed in? glazed one of the pads? was the geo done at the same time as the shocks?
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Mr Slow
when I had this it was a stuck slider pin on one of the rear calipers
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miles
What Rich says
Sticky left front calliper slider pin.
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W
Miles said:
What Rich says
Sticky left front calliper slider pin.
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Just so I understand, why do you think it's the front left that's sticking? And what do i do to fix it?
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W
Yetidragon said:
I've just had a set of Gaz Gold Pros fitted and geo'd with WIM's Nurburgring settings and at the same time had a new set of OEM discs and yellowstuff pads installed (all done by a local quality garage).

The car feels stable apart from when braking from speed as it wants to pull to the left. I checked the fitting of the rear pads this morning and all looks fine and another test drive gave the same result.

I'm going to struggle to get the car back to the garage before my first track day, so any ideas what could be the problem? I'd like to sort it this weekend if possible.

Cheers
Andy
Click to expand...
Mine was pulling to the right under braking, had my allignment done by rodders in sheffield which seems to have go rid of it.

how long have you had the brakes fitted? maybe one is taking longer to bed in? glazed one of the pads? was the geo done at the same time as the shocks?
[/quote]
Everything was done in one go. I'm sure it's not the geo, it's obviously brake related but I'm just not quite sure what or how to check for it.
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wheels-inmotion
Can you check the dampers are set correctly?.... 5 clicks front, 7 rear, anti clockwise is to zero clockwise is to max. On track + 5 front/ rear is wise.
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W
wheels-inmotion said:
Can you check the dampers are set correctly?.... 5 clicks front, 7 rear, anti clockwise is to zero clockwise is to max. On track + 5 front/ rear is wise.
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Hi Mr WIM

Just to confirm, that's 5/7 clicks from soft (I think it's about 24 clicks fully hard to fully soft)? I was only looking at the rear end today and set the rear dampers to 12 from soft - they were about 7 from soft before adjustment. I was expecting to have to set them harder for the track, rather than softer. The springs are 400/300 front/rear.

Btw, the car is just a track toy so any help is greatly appreciated. I'll check the front dampers in the morning
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S
check it's not just due to the camber of the road before you start messing with stuff.
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W
skinny said:
check it's not just due to the camber of the road before you start messing with stuff.
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I wish it was...
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wheels-inmotion
worldwidewebs said:
Can you check the dampers are set correctly?.... 5 clicks front, 7 rear, anti clockwise is to zero clockwise is to max. On track + 5 front/ rear is wise.
Click to expand...
Hi Mr WIM

Just to confirm, that's 5/7 clicks from soft (I think it's about 24 clicks fully hard to fully soft)? I was only looking at the rear end today and set the rear dampers to 12 from soft - they were about 7 from soft before adjustment. I was expecting to have to set them harder for the track, rather than softer. The springs are 400/300 front/rear.

Btw, the car is just a track toy so any help is greatly appreciated. I'll check the front dampers in the morning
[/quote]

That all reads fine to me...... I think there's a friction issue for whatever reason, can you move the pads side-to-side to see if the complaint migrates.
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W
wheels-inmotion said:
Can you check the dampers are set correctly?.... 5 clicks front, 7 rear, anti clockwise is to zero clockwise is to max. On track + 5 front/ rear is wise.
Click to expand...
Hi Mr WIM

Just to confirm, that's 5/7 clicks from soft (I think it's about 24 clicks fully hard to fully soft)? I was only looking at the rear end today and set the rear dampers to 12 from soft - they were about 7 from soft before adjustment. I was expecting to have to set them harder for the track, rather than softer. The springs are 400/300 front/rear.

Btw, the car is just a track toy so any help is greatly appreciated. I'll check the front dampers in the morning
[/quote]

That all reads fine to me...... I think there's a friction issue for whatever reason, can you move the pads side-to-side to see if the complaint migrates.
[/quote]
Thanks for the input. However, I don't have any more time to spend on it this week so I'm taking it back to the garage for them to have another look at - a bit of a pain as it means taking time off work (and losing self-employed income!). I did mention that the steering wheel isn't quite straight after the geo and 'maybe' that one of the brakes is sticking on slightly but they didn't think that would make a difference.

Got a trackday booked in for the 17th and now getting nervous that the car won't be ready.
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wheels-inmotion
If the chassis position are wrong the gains under braking would remain symmetrical however wrong. If the pull is a constant then the chassis position could be blamed but since the trigger is friction there's problems elsewhere. As far as the suspension is concerned only an imbalance in the "bump" or transition of the inertia is not replied to by the dampers/ coils other than that the suspension remains a passanger.
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W
Well a bit of an update (cos I hate it when people don't finish threads off properly).

I was hoping to take the car back in but work/time prevented me. In the end I took the pads out of each caliper and refitted them, nothing else, then went for a drive. Result? No pulling to left. All the sliders were copper-slipped so I don't think they would have been sticking and nothing obvious seemed amiss, but the problem has certainly gone now. Hurrah!

One "issue" though following on from my trackday yesterday at Colerne is I think the brakes are crap (new discs and yellowstuff all round). On the fastest part of the circuit I was having to brake a good 20 yards before other stuff and felt there was too much pedal travel overall - something I did comment on to my garage but it's been so long since I last drove an MX5 I wasn't sure if TADTS. So, a re-bleed is on the cards then...
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