Brake Pulling

[mdsalemi]

Symptom: upon braking only, car pulls to the left.

During Spring maintenance ritual at Motorwerks, mechanic Shajin Mathew happened to notice that 4 large bolts that hold the driver's side control arms in place were amiss: 2 were missing completely, and 2 were loose and the threads stripped to where they could not be tightened.  Must not have been properly installed when reassembled during the restoration.  Ah, the importance of proper lock washers etc. and a good torque wrench.

4 new bolts, properly torqued down, solved the brake pulling problem.  Also solved one of the myriad little noise issues as some play in the suspension was eliminated (ya think?) by having all the bolts there.  No more crunching sounds as you come to a stop and the suspension moves.  Funny, the car tracked straight as an arrow on the highway at 90 MPH.  While the crunching sounds were annoying there are a lot of annoying sounds to me in all cars; a 37 year old car, even restored, has sounds you'll never diagnose and never cure.

Things are not always the way they seem.  The brakes were fine.

Michael Salemi
1969 280SL
Signal Red w/Black Leather
Restored

[JPMOSE]

Michael,

Did you have the car aligned after this repair work?

Best Regards,

J. P. Mose
1968 250SL

[mdsalemi]

quote:Originally posted by JPMOSE

Michael,

Did you have the car aligned after this repair work?

Best Regards,

J. P. Mose
1968 250SL

JP,

I believe the bolts were attachment points not adjustment points; no realignment was indicated or suggested.  However an alignment check--perhaps later this year--might be in order just on general principles.  This place has a pretty fancy Hunter alignment rig that will give extremely accurate indications, so I can get a good idea of "where its at".

Michael Salemi
1969 280SL
Signal Red w/Black Leather
Restored

[bpossel]

Hi Mike!

I am soooo glad that you caught this in time.  I replaced both sides of my control arm bushings several months ago.  I also replaced the lock washers for the bolts while doing this maint.  so I know that this is an area not to fool around with.  On your car, with bolts missing on the control arm, that is really a safety issue!  Nothing to fool with and like I said before...  I am gald that you had this checked out and fixed!

This should be a "lessons learned" for all of us.  Listen to the noises on your 113 and have it looked at by professionals once in awhile!  The pros will catch things that we will never see.

Please take care!
Bob


bpossel  (Memphis, TN.)
'71 280SL  /  '97 E320

[ChrisInNashville]

Interesting experience.  

Same thing happened to me 20 years ago with a '75 Fiat Spider (piece of c**p).   No one could find the problem by looking at alignment and brakes.

I sold it to a Vanderbilt student.   Despite a full inspection by the mechanic, two days later the "bottom fell out" while he was cruisin' for chicks...out of guilt, I split the repair cost with him.   I don't think he got any dates for a couple weeks after that...