OK guys, I need some ideas.

When I brake at speeds over 45mph or so my steering wheel shakes up and down, i.e. vertically. Now, I've had shaking steering wheel issues before on dad's 245 - unbalanced, cheap tires caused it but that was all the time, not just on braking; and bad rotors has caused it but that was usually more of a side-to-side thing, I believe.

I've never had the steering wheel shake vertically until now. I just finsihed replacing nearly every wear item in the front suspension: ball joints, tie rod ends, strut cartridges, control arm bushings (including one control arm - GRRRRR), sway bar bushings, and I've added IPD bars, as well as my custom Heim joint endlinks which are holding up fine, btw, but do transmit a bit of harshness from the road.

Having done all of that I also had the car aligned two days ago hoping the vibration would go away or at least lessen. I asked the guys doing the work to take a quick look at the car and see if they noticed anything obvious that would explain the vibration. They said front and rear brake rotors both needed replaced and that they were below minimum thickness to resurface. I told them the front rotors were replaced 6 months ago and the guy said, "Hang on....ok, I was looking at the wrong specs, they can be resurfaced but the rears need replaced."

These guys have been quite honest with me in the past but I just don't see how bad brake rotors would cause the steering wheel to vibrate up and down - especially rear rotors - without shaking the car or even pulsing the pedal.

I've got the money to fix whatever is causing this vibration - which is intermittant but occasionally quite severe - but I don't have the money to start throwing parts at it in hopes that I'll find the problem right now.

So I need some solid ideas on what to check - my cousin is going to lend me his runout gauge - before I go replcaing things with the hope that it'll fix it.

I'm thinking look in the steering column?

Thanks fellas,
Sean
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Sean Corron