I've had a problem on my Volvo for about a year now to varying degrees and I would greatly appreciate any advice in solving it. The car is a 93 945T

with 90k miles. My wagon exhibits fairly severe shaking of the steering

wheel when braking above ~50 MPH. As soon as the speed drops below about 45 MPH, there is absolutely no shudder. As the car slows down, you can notice some variation in the braking force (car feels as if I'm varying the

pressure on the pedal) at about 10 MPH and below. Here's the background:

About a year ago, I replaced the front and rear pads with "Greenstuff"

Kevlar pads from MVP. About the same time, I had new tires mounted at Sam's Club (with an impact wrench of course) and sometime later the steering shudder developed. I figured it was obviously warped rotors so I replaced the front rotors with new ones from ABT and carefully torqued front wheel lugs to spec.

About 2 months later, shudder began to reappear. I figured maybe the rear

rotors were warped too. I wasn't particularly impressed with the new

brakepads, so I also ordered new Volvo pads. Installed new rear rotors, new pads front and rear, and torqued all wheels to spec. Steering shudder got better but didn't go completely away.

After much searching of Volvo sources on the net, I found out about possible problem of strut rod bushings. Installed 4 of those, and the problem got better, but still didn't go away. Further research turned up the possibility of excessive run-out with even new rotors, so I borrowed a dial indicator from a friend, removed the rotors, cleaned the mounting faces, remounted the rotors and checked the run-out, which was about 0.0025" max (less than the 0.003 allowed), reinstalled the wheels, and tightened lugs with a torque wrench.

Problem was better for a while, but it has again gradually gotten worse.

The steering wheel now shakes hard enough when braking at 60 MPH to be

extremely annoying if not actually unsafe. Last Saturday, thinking the new

rotors must have warped, I pulled the front wheels and checked the runout on the disks again, and it is about 0.0015 maximum (well within spec).

I'd greatly appreciate any advice on troubleshooting this problem. Are there some other bushings I need to check? Could there be something in the front suspension loose? Is my friend's dial indicator too lousy to detect the problem?

Thanks in Advance,

Hugh Odom

93 945T