Need a little help here. Brake shimmy and abs kicking in.

My ‘03 AC was making alot of droning noise from the front end (no brake shimmy), So I had my front wheel bearings replaced at a local shop. While they were taking apart the hubs I had them replace rotors,pads. Also asked them to rotate tires and replace rear drums and pads

When it was time to pick up my truck the owner informed me there was a brake shimmy and activation of my ABS system but he believed it to be from the old calipers that weren’t replaced with the other parts. He advised me to replace the calipers and my issues would go away. Sounded simple enough. I replaced my calipers same day and the problems remained. I returned the truck to his shop and asked home to make it right. He said that all the work performed was double checked and all good.

shop owner claims there’s nothing else he can do for me and that my issue is probably from my tires or worn lower control arm bushings. But I didn’t have and brake issues before I dropped it off… not sure where to go from he with it. If anyone has had similar issues after wheel bearing replacement please let me know

Thanks!

 

It's typical for aftermarket rotors and drums to be warped straight out of the box on these trucks. Why? Hell if I know. It's been a constant complaint. But it'll cause pulsing while braking, right out of the box.

They replaced wheel bearings. The ABS/wheel speed sensor must be removed to pull the knuckle and press the bearing. I see two possible issues here.

One.

Best case. They fucked up and lost and/or didn't reinstall the ABS sensors properly. See this thread. Very easy to check.

Two.

They don't follow Toyota spec and line up the tone ring right (which happens A LOT it seems) or they don't properly install the ABS/wheel speed sensor square so it's reading the tone ring askew. You'll get false activation of ABS (pulsing) in multiple cases where tone ring and/or ABS sensor isn't aligned as it should be. It'll happen if there's garbage on the sensor also, but if they installed the sensor with shit all over it, that's just bizarre, they should know better. There's a good chance he fucked up royally here and is trying to cop out because he doesn't know what the fuck he's doing. Pull each front ABS sensor, shine a flashlight in the hole, and take a photo. Tone ring should be pretty much centered in the hole IIRC. It should look like it does in this thread, showing a front ABS sensor hole with tone ring nicely square inside (and how clean the sensor should be).

This is what it looks like in a rear ABS sensor hole, where the bearing was pressed too far, way beyond Toyota spec, so it's too far off-center, too far toward the hub.

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Oh and either way, let us know.

PS - check torque on EVERYTHING they touched. I know the front (and moreso the rear) bearings are a bitch to press in properly, but ... if they can't get it right, then there's a solid chance they just ugga-dugga'd your upper ball joint nut on to whatever the fuck torque spec they wanted. And any number of other things. I wouldn't trust that shop any more than I could piss on it from here in Atlanta.

 

For real! This is the first time I’ve ever taken my truck to a shop and not done the work myself… I just didn’t want to press those bearings haha. This is what I get for being lazy. I’ll check torques. Shop said they took the whole upper control arm off because they didn’t want to deal with the uni ball… ‍♂️

 

It's a PITA to get the driver side off because of the metal lines going to the rear! They created more work because they're too lazy to google the torque spec on that nut? What a bunch of assbags.

Oh, and before you pop off the ABS sensors, visually inspect it. Make sure the ABS sensor didn't get torqued down too hard, so it's sitting crooked, it should be nicely flush (its flange) on the knuckle. You may try backing off the nut to pull it, clean it with a clean shop towel and check o-rings are OK, confirm the tone ring position in the hole, then reinstall squarely, tighten 'til it bites, and give another 1/4 - 1/2 turn. I think the spec on my '06 is like 13lbft or something really light like that. If they overtorqued that could cause it to sit wrong.

 

I just realized you typed up a long first post about the wheel sensors. I’m on my way to the beach for the weekend because I’ve had enough with real life this week. I’ll check it all out on Monday and post up pictures. Thanks for all your input! You’re that dude!

 

I have a feeling they installed that tone ring in the wrong position

 

3rd option, these things are finicky and 20 years old. Mine stopped working after removal and my tone rings/wheel bearings were never touched. Several others have had the same issue after suspension work. A few have had success get the ABS activation to stop.

 

Short term, pull the ABS fuse. The culprit for the brakes is usually aftermarket rear drums. They also likely failed to re-adjust the rears properly.

 

The shop that did the works went this route saying the truck is just old and things need to be replaced. So they replaced the abs sensors and no luck on fixing the issue.

 

I did pull fuses to get it home. It was so unsafe to drive with the abs cutting on and off. I took it back to the shop and they claim to have double check everything to 100 percent. Idk I might take it to Toyota to diagnose the issues but I’m sure they will just charge me a bunch of labor and tell me that everything is aftermarket and needs to be replaced

 

Once you've verified everything is installed properly regarding the sensors and tone rings, a zero point calibration might also help.

 

Not every scanner can pull ABS codes. In my town the Autozone can pull those. Have you tried reading ABS codes?

 

I feel like, in cases where the tone ring wasn't touched, it's probably a matter of over-torquing the ABS sensor, or the o-rings, or not reinstalling the ABS sensor properly (square) in the hole. Or crap buildup / damage to the sensor while it's out during install.

The function of the ABS system isn't dissimilar from how a bicycle speedo/tach works. Glorified magnetic sensor that counts the metal raised tabs as it spins by. The sensors are expensive as shit, but they rarely fail, and seem to be pretty heavily impacted by random foreign debris (especially metal shavings) making them read off, and not having proper seating so they're not reading the ridges squarely, or I guess the o-rings allowing stuff to get in from what others posted in thread I linked above.

 

With 4Runners and lifting them, it’s usually the wire gets pinched or stretched causing issues

 

Crap built up on the tone ring for the win! No more ABS issues after I cleaned all teeth. Now we’ll see if the shop that did the work will make it right.

 

Also I don’t have a way to spin the drums to see if they are warped. But I removed them to inspect and there was quite a bit of brake dust and some weird wear patterns on the pads. Rear drums have 30 miles since new

 

Ding ding ding! Foreign debris for the win. I can't tell if that tone ring is properly square or not, I would expect a little less of a gap, but without looking at my own (which are factory original), I'm not sure. I've expect the ring needs to cover at least 2/3 of the hole rto read, knowing the tip of the ABS sensor is what's reading and it's square in the middle of the hole. I kinda wish we had reference pictures on here for people to use. Might add to the list...

On the brakes. Brake dust; I'd expect that level knowing you're all new and bedding. The bumps on the shoe reek of jumping to me. And You just said ABS was automagically activating. What happens when ABS activates? BITE BITE BITE BITE BITE. IMO, I'd actually expect to see exactly that.

I'd hold off and run it for a bit. Set a reminder for yourself for 30 days from now, to come back and update us on whether this solves your issues. If you continue having issues, I'm sure the pads are fine, maybe (A) pull your drums and measure, or take to a store to have them turn or check if they need turning, (B) go with OEM drums (if not currently OEM) and sell cheap or give away your non-OEM (if they are) to help recoup some $$.

Just my 2¢.

 

So upon further inspection I found LCA bushings completely torn so I replaced LCA all joints steering rack bushings sway arm bushings and outer tie rods. Also found one of the rear wheels bearings completely blown out, couldn’t believe how much play there was! I replaced rear wheel bearings and another fresh set of drums and pads. But unfortunately i still have a brake shimmy… I did the run out on front rotors and hubs everything is very straight. While taking the runout measurement I noticed a slight wobble in the CV axle shafts. At this point I’m running out of money fixing this thing. What are some good options for after market CV axles that will get me down the road until I can save up and by OEM? Thanks