Hello;

My 95 XJS was at the body shop getting some panels stripped and redone again as there where some flaws from the original full bare metal strip a while back.....anyway, I picked up the car yesterday from the body shop where it was for two weeks, to drop it of at the wet-sander, and noticed that whenever I stop my brakes pull to the left. The car was not like this when I dropped it of. Other than taking the bonnet of, the body shop had not done anything that even remotely involves the engine or brakes. My car is not a daily driver, but she does get driven at least 2 days a week..... What could have happened in the 2 weeks it was sitting at the body shop?? They did use the manual brake to be able to get the top up and down since they had to partially remove it. Any help greatly appreciated

Thanks!!

 

Any pulsing, or strange noises/vibrations happening when you brake?

 

Hi Vee,

Sorry for the long story, but basically the car had been pulsing at stops and I had my shop change the rotors out with a super cheap pair I bought. That stopped the pulsing for a couple of months. A week or two before dropping the car of at the body shop I noticed a little bit of pulsing had returned. I attributed it to the super cheap rotors I bought. But the car had never pulled to one side like it does now

 

Most commonly a brake pull is caused by a caliper not doing it's job: seized and non-functional, or leaking.

If you have the earlier Teves ABS (I think '95 was a transtional year to the later ABS system) you might wanna look at a recent thread about the valve block not delivered brake fluid pressure to one wheel.


Cheers
DD

 

I had a similar problem when changing out the front end rubbers.

Check the speed sensor that fits into the front wheel. The plastic bracket is most likely broken. The sensor may have either backed its way out or gotten dirty.

It's an easy fix for small hands. I wish I could recall what size socket was needed to get the sensor loose. 6mm I think? You can resecure the sensor with a washer.

 

Thanks Doug. Well, I certainly hope it isn't that. On that topic the owner had to end up replacing the entire master cylinder/ brake actuator assembly. That's not very cheap.

 

Vee, this sounds very likely since the car has not even been washed after being painted. Hopefully it's just a dirty sensor. Was your ABS light coming on when this happened to you? Mine is not on

 

About pulsing: I had the devil of a job sorting rotors when I first got my car. After about 2000 miles I would get pulsing from warped rotors. I was working at the time and had at least 3 sets put on by specialist garages.

In the end, I found out from someone, that the only way to get them right was to a) buy top quality rotors (EBC in my case), then b) remove the hubs and very carefully scrape clean the flange on which the rotors sit, then c) replace the rotors and hubs and test for runout with a dial gauge and keep at it (removing and cleaning the hub flange) until runout is no more than 1 thou.

Since that day, I have had no more problems.

Greg

 

Thanks for your reply. I figured I wold try te cheap route for once and bought the 50.00 dollar pair, which I had hoped would hold me over a year and I was then planning on getting EBC's myself.

Depending on what this pulling to the side turns out to be, I may or may not be able to replace them right away

 

No, the ABS light was not coming on.

I'm trying to remember if you'll need to take the upper arms off the ball joint to get at the speed sensor. It isn't a big deal since there are two bolts holding it in place.

I think you'll need a 13mm socket and open ended wrench to loosen it.

I can almost guarantee you that they will be filthy and the bracket will have broken. The friction alone seems to be more than enough to keep it in place, but again, I slid in a washer so that the small bolt would keep the two bracket pieces together and pinned in it's hole.

If you're going to do one, you may as well do both sides...

 

Cleaning the sensors is a great idea on general principles because they're often gunked up.

But.....

Do you feel the ABS kick-in when this brake pull occurs?

What I'm driving at is this: if the brake pull occurs under normal/mild/moderate braking, and the ABS isn't activating, then the ABS wheel speed sensors are not in play.

Cheers
DD

 

Excellent advice!


Cheers
DD

 

I believe this is the post Doug was talking about.

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...-solved-90384/

My car had the same issue, out of the blue.

 

I was getting pulsating vibrations AND a heavy pull to one side ONLY during the final seconds of braking. Decelerating braking seemed fine. It was only at the end when the wheel would turn and the car with it while the pulses came in.

 

Thanks for this, the car is at the wet-sander until Thursday. You guys have given me a lot of things to look at. THANKS!!

 

Doug,

like Vee, if i come tpo a stop more gently, letting of the gas easy it wont pull

 

Heh heh. This gets a little tricky. A warped brake rotor can result in pulsating vibrations. But, the normal operation of ABS typically results in a pulsating vibration as well.

My gut feeling is that you have a caliper problem and, on top of that, warped rotors.

I don't think you have an ABS issue....or at least not an issue with ABS *electricals*. There's a possibility of a problem with ABS *hydraulics*, though. (See the recent "no fluid to caliper posts").

You could unplug the ABS unit or remove the fuse and see if anything changes.

Cheers
DD

 

Well I just picked up the car from the wet-sander. After a little city driving the problem went away (?!). What do all think this points to??

 

Not using the ABS enough. It is a good idea to find a bit of gravel road and do a few emergency stops every so often, so the ABS mechanism gets some exercise.

Greg

 

Thanks for your reply. I have been driving her around and she's still braking fine. Should I have the system flushed or take any other maintenance action?