Speedster Pulls to the Left When Braking

My speedster, from day one, pulls to the left when braking. I of course thought brakes and have them check out, no problems.

And it doesn't really feel like brakes. It's mostly at the initial press of the pedal, the car tugs to the left, and then further braking doesn't continue pulling.

I can drive down the road, tap the brakes and you can see the steering wheel jerk about an inch to the left. If I hit the brakes real hard, it jerks real hard and you always have to have your hands solid on the wheel for such situations.

Anyone have any ideas other than brakes?

Thanks!

Cole

Ok... If I were a betting man, I'd say the brakes aren't right. Here's a list of things to look for.
1- bleed brakes
2- if it pulls left, the left side brakes are better than the right. So isolate the issue to the right front/rear. Make sure the rear shoes touch the drums a little.
3- if a piston on your right front caliper is cocked or stuck, it WILL make line pressure when the brake is applied. It will " bleed correct". In other words, a stuck caliper will bleed fine and feel ok in the shop, but in reality, it's not clamping at all, or maybe partially. Make sure the pads are moving.
4- make sure the pads are in correct, not backing plate to rotor.
5- Possible, but not likely, the torsion bars are clocked off a spline or two, or three.... In other words lithe car isnt sitting level to the ground. Usually when my race cars pull under braking, it's braking. If a pull rod or shock bell crank is bent, and the ride height is off, it'll pull all the time, and it's pronounced under braking. But it'll pull all the time.

so, let's start at the basics. your tires

are your tires the same air pressure and size?

if so, drums of discs on the front? If they are drums they could be needing adjustment. If they are discs - you could have air in the line that it does not pull toward.

assuming no air in the lines, perfect adjustment and correct tire pressure...

does the car sit the same on both sides? ie, is the ride height the same?

if not - gotta fix that cause it could affect your corner weighting a LOT - which would affect your braking/steering

then your alignment. caster/camber both can be adjusted.

ball joint?

edit - Keith beat me to the punch :)

I had my master plumbed wrong (previous owner) and found out it was right and left instead of front and rear.

Could also be a partially collapsed/blocked hose. If you've got more time than money, you could swap them side-to-side and see if the pull follows.

Residual pressure valve incorrectly installed in only one side (maybe also backwards)?

Alignment could be way out, but if that were the case, you'd notice it over bumps and such, not just under braking.

Even if you have front disks, the rear drums being out of adjustment can make you change lanes unintentionally. Ask me how I know. Or better yet, ask Cory.

All of these are great places to start looking, and I agree with Keith and Mango:

The problem sure sounds like brakes, and it's probably on the right side of the car, i.e.; either the front caliper or rear drum (or both) is not engaging as strongly as the left and needs to be adjusted or freed up (the idea of a clogged brake hose is a good one, too, and they're cheap to replace - you just have to re-bleed that corner).

If it's not the brakes, then the next thing (or maybe the FIRST thing) I would check is get a tape measure and measure from the ground vertically across the centerline of the wheel to the top of the wheel arch. Left and right on each end (front and rear ends) should match with 1/4" or so. If not, your torsion bars need adjustment. Report back and we can tell you how do to this. I wouldn't worry about front-to-back right now if they're off.

If it's not height, then I would suspect that your front end camber is mis-adjusted and only an alignment check will show that, but out-of-camber on the front can do the steering pull game, too.

So, check your tire sizes, your tire pressures and if they all check out with no change then start looking at the more drastic stuff.

Thanks for the ideas. I'm taking it into my mechanic soon and we will recheck the brakes again and also look at suspension.

Last night as I was driving I also noticed that when I let go of the wheel it drifts slightly to the left, the same direction as the brake pull.

Just for fun, I would hit the brakes hard for a second, just to see how much pull. I can take a fairly good left hand curve without moving the steering wheel and just by braking!

then it's almost certainly alignment

Also check for bent front trailing arms. An arm that is bent side-to-side could still have the camber adjusted back into spec so the alignment checks out but the scrub radius would off. Mismatched scrub radii would cause a slight drag to one side while driving and a noticable pull over bumps and under braking. The right side with excess negative scrub or left side with excess positive scrub would both cause pulling left.