Steering wheel vibration

[Simon83]

I recently upgrade the brakes on my R53 Cooper S to a set from a R56 Cooper S. The calipers were overhauled with new seals, sliding pins etc before fitting. A new set of Mtec groves and dimpled disc's and Mintex pads all round. A new passenger side hub was fitted at the same time. When the caliper and disc was fitted to the passenger side the disc would rotate 3/4's of a turn then jam. The new disc's came with the anti corrosion coating so I took the car a short run to clean this off, but I could feel the vibration coming up through the brake pedal even on very very light braking. So I bought a dti and magnetic base to check the disc run out. The passenger side was showing 0.22mm and the driver side 0.08mm so the passenger side was well out of tolerance. I took the disc off and checked the run out on the new hub was 0.03mm so it looked like the new disc was warped. After a lot of pictures and video's Mtec sent me a new set of front disc's.
I fitted the new disc's yesterday morning, the passenger side had a run out of 0.07mm and the drivers side 0.05mm so both disc's well with tolerance. While the car was jacked up both wheels turned freely. I took the car a run initially everything was fine with no vibration. The further I drove I started getting vibration through the steering wheel but not the brake pedal when breaking.
This morning I stripped everything off again to double check and everything looks ok. The disc's are still showing the same run out, and aren't showing any signs overheating. All bushing's look in good condition and the suspension all seems tight. With the front of the car on axle stands with the wheels off, engine running and car in gear I can see there's a bit of wobble on both drive shafts which in turn is being transferred to gearbox. Is this normal?
I have just took the car for another run and it's exactly the same. No vibration initially then the longer I drive the more vibration through the steering wheel when breaking.
Sorry for the essay but has anyone got any suggestions ,as I would set a match to the car very quickly this week!

 

[Boabybooster]

@Wild Thing knows his minis.

 

[Apis]

I'm not sure of the answer but I have a few observations.
Check the accuracy and cleanliness of the hub / disc mating surfaces.
If you check the run out on just one side of the disc it doesn't confirm that the thickness of the disc is uniform the whole way around. There's a chance, though unlikely, that the run out on one side of the disc doesn't match that of the other.
You should clean the coating off with solvent and a rag rather than contaminate your Mintex pads.

 

[Coog]

Has the CV joint been pulled off the shaft and not put back together properly?

 

[Wild Thing]

Goodness that is a story, the drives should run 100% true, check from gearbox out everything is aligned. I have drilled and grooved brakes on my car with the R56 cooper s callipers. I like the braking but hate the discs, never again on a road car would i bother with drilled/groove, a load of humming, minor vibrations and not a big improvement over standard. A load of sheite. I have fitted mtec brakes that customers provided and they were even worse than mine, so i would suggest try a set of standard discs and see what happens, you might be frying your head for nothing but the nature of drilled and grooved discs.

 

[Nigelo]

If it's not the discs, then maybe with all the 'on-and-off' with discs and wheels, something is not sitting flush? My only experience is with a set of spacers that looked like the were on properly, but a bit of grime had got down the back... just a few crumbs was enough for wobbles.

 

[Simon83]

Thanks for the suggestions. I will have another look tomorrow, if I can't find anything I will see about leaving it in somewhere. I bought the car a year ago and still haven't managed a proper long drive in it.

 

[Wild Thing]

If you have no joy fire it down to our garage, pm and i can get you booked in

 

[stevieturbo]

The fact you fitted a "new" passenger side hub...and that is the side the problem appears to be, should be a red flag.

Most likely either there is an issue with the hub itself, or it may not be fitted correctly.

 

[Simon83]

Well finally got to the bottom of this yesterday. The mechanic had the car most of the day he checked engine mounts, drive shafts, hubs,wheel bearings, calipers and disks, steering racking swapping the wheels from front to back but with no joy. As a last resorted he fitted another set of new disks, and hey presto no more vibration. So it looks like both sets of disks from Mtec were faulty. I put close to 100miles on the car today without any problems. At least the car is now drivable after nearly 5 weeks of sitting idle. Thanks for all the suggestions of the causes