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Steering wheel shake

2K views 26 replies 14 participants last post by  Lakegoat 
#1 ·
Hey guys looking to fix a few problems on my wifes car with taxes, but dont like throwing money at stuff. It's an 04' gto with Z06 vette wheels 17's front 18's rear. Im a mechanic and have done the balance , roadforce, torqueing etc..... on the wheels time and again. But since she has had the car it has had the 65 mph shake that I can't get rid of and now of recent has a BAD low speed steering wheel shake under braking. I assume it's warped rotors even though the front pads aren't that old. I'm leaning torwards either new rotors or cutting them again with our pro cut on car brake lathe and maybe some hawk pads???? I have personally never had/seen a complaint or comeback from a customer about brake pulsations returning after brake work. In conjuction with the steering shake I believe the radius rod bushings are bad (even though I cant get the wheels to kick back under a panic stop) and could be causing a "hammering" motion under braking causing the shake? Can't find any hard answers to back up whether or not the RR would cause this or not. Looking at Lovells RR bushings , Hawk pads and I would appreciate any ideas on good front rotors that dont cost a lot. Thanks
 
#2 · (Edited)
If the bushings in the front end can't hold the alignment correctly under load, what good are they? If they have more than 40k on them you need to replace them. I replaced all front end bushings with poly and it took the majority of the 60-80 MPH shake and brake shake away. Now the 04's have tiny brakes for the cars size, so it may be that the brakes are slightly warped.
 
#3 ·
Here's something to try that's cheap. Pick a front wheel, remove it, turn 2/5ths of the way, and put it on again being sure to bolt it down kitty corner using a torque wrench.

Test drive. Does the problem get better/worse or stay the same ?

If it gets worse, put 1st wheel back. Then repeat with 2nd front wheel. There will probably be a magic position of one or both wheels which greatly reduces or almost eliminates the 65mph wheel shake.

These cars need hub centric wheels, so you aside from that, you need to try and "nail" a balance that your car likes. This even happens with hub centric wheels BTW, same ghetto fix.
 
#4 ·
I was getting some wheel shake, come to find that I had a tie rod that was just a little loose. Replaced and problem solved. Just an idea

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#6 ·
I read that somewhere just recently. I just need her to come by the shop so I can throw it in the air and inspect. The car has been through like 5 sets of tires in the last 50 k miles with horrible inside edge wear front and rear. Gonna replace the pads and RR bushings needs 2 front tires again cause of too much negitive camber so I bought camber bolts that I need to put in . Needs a new headliner and key fob ...... got my work cut out for me.
 
#5 ·
I just read a post about hat size being too small and I unerstand about hat destortion from over tightening and finding the sweet spot , but I cant dedicate my life to finding that. It does have vette wheels and the rim hub and the cars hub slightly differ but the car did have paper thin hub rings when car was purchased. Could be chasing the previous owners headaches here as well who knows. I'm just tired of there being 12 different fixes for 1 problem. It was like this for the rear tire wear that ended up being spring sag now the front... Did the dealership tell customers "Hey we need to torque and torque and torque your wheels , and if that's not right we are going to clock it 1 lug over and do it all again " ????
 
#9 ·
I was looking at new ebc rotors and hawk pads , but will just try to cut the rotors again. I put factory a/c delco on last time I did brakes , just thought of trying something different. I also have the zero drop lovells on the rear with new shocks (rear spring sag) and at the time the alignment had a little bit of negative camber in the front which isn't bad on the toyota's I work on , but I see it's horrible on these cars. That's why I bought new camber bolts. Just want to tighten the car up a little and return it to glory I guess I'm just like thousands of others that are trying to pin point the shake.
 
#11 ·
I wish I could . These were on the car when she bought it . I heard people say vette wheels dont fit , but they do even though the vette bore is just a tad bigger. Always been in the back of my mind that it could be the wheels . Just dont have the means to diag it with stock wheels.
 
#16 ·
I had the same problem with my car. Had C6 Corvette wheels on it. 18 and 19 inchers but had a bad steering shake at the same speed. Just got my wheels changed last week and it fixed the problem totally! Drives very smooth at all speeds now! Now i had to run big spacers on it to make the wheels fit so that may have been some of my problem to. Just my experience.
 
#19 ·
I found some new front rubber and a proper alignment fixed my issues.
 
#20 ·
I had vibrations when braking... got my rotors turned and it solved the problem. I had 65mph wheel shake... got an alignment, fixed the sagging suspension(strut mounts & saggy springs) and bought new tires and it solved the problem. Had the "hammering" under hard braking... Replaced the front rr bushings and it solved the problem. All of these issues on a car with under 50k miles.
 
#21 ·
I appreciate all the help , it helped to bounce ideas around . I think I will try the hub ring for now since it's like 20 bucks as opposed to 500 for new wheels and see what happens. Strut mounts are such a pain to do , but I would be an idiot to do the camber bolts, RR bushings , tires and alignment and not do them.... Anyone get any good cheap strut mounts/bearings that doesn't cost a 180 bucks. Lol Tried looking on ebay and seems like all strut mounts without bearings are around 80 dollars. What are some good GTO parts sites. Any that are like american muscle to mustangs ????? Thanks for all the help.
 
#22 ·
Strut mounts are such a pain to do , but I would be an idiot to do the camber bolts, RR bushings , tires and alignment and not do them.... Anyone get any good cheap strut mounts/bearings that doesn't cost a 180 bucks. Lol Tried looking on ebay and seems like all strut mounts without bearings are around 80 dollars. What are some good GTO parts sites. Any that are like american muscle to mustangs ????? Thanks for all the help.
Unfortunately parts for these cars aren't in high demand like a Mustang, so the prices are much higher. You won't find a site dedicated to GTO parts like you do for Mustangs.

Sorry to say, but it sounds to me like you have bad strut mount bushings and warped rotors, especially with your comment about several sets of tires wearing on the inside edge within 50k miles.

You don't need eccentric camber bolts, just get some good fasteners from Mac Master Carr along with fresh rotors, strut bushings and RR bushings, and I bet these problems go away.

I use the following for my lower strut mounting bolts and torqued them to 140 ft/lbs:

91310A788 (2 packages)
90685A115 (1 package)
91074A134 (1 package)
 
#24 ·
You can get the Lovell's No Rub kit for $355 to fix the front tire wear issues, then add the Mac Master bolts and some cheapy rotors and I think you'll be happy.

I wouldn't recommend buying strut mount bushings without the bearings, so if you go with another brand, just make sure you're getting the bearings too. They have a tendency to fall apart especially with the odd angle created by the failed rubber.
 
#25 ·
I had bad tire shake few months after buying mine. Looked at front tires and the inside was badly worn. My rear springs sagged, rear shocks blown and rr bushings were bad. So I went ahead and replaced everything. Did all the bushings with an XA kit. Shaking was 100% gone. Few months later it would shake when hitting brakes. I knew the pads were pretty worn being they were the originals and had 40k on them. So I replaced front rear rotors and pads.......shaking all gone. I'm not saying you have to get an XA kit but you should really look into redoing your suspension. At the minimum find a set of oem rims to see if that helps. Maybe some local GTO owners would let you swap rims to see if its the problem or not.

GTO's seem to be really sensitive to any suspension issues. I remember after lowering my fbody I would get slight inner tire wear but never had a problem with it shaking or driving any differently.
 
#26 ·
GTO's seem to be really sensitive to any suspension issues. I remember after lowering my fbody I would get slight inner tire wear but never had a problem with it shaking or driving any differently.[/QUOTE]

I'm starting to notice that. I just wish the parts weren't so limited and expensive. Will try to do some research to take some of the price shock away. Just seems retarted to spend 400 dollars for 2 RR bushings and strut mounts. Could be worse I guess.
 
#27 ·
I had the shimmy during braking only. I put on new Stoptech rotors and EBC yellow pads and NEVER have any shimmy during braking again. The pads dust a lttle too much but no problems. I think over time that some deposits build up on the stock rotors and cause the erratic shimmy. You should be able to turn the rotors if that is the case. The new rotors are just clean and straight, no other difference. If you have a good rotor machine at your disposal, grind away.---Cheaper than new--just change the pads.
 
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