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1G High Rolling Resistance

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Uncle Jacks Hands

Proven Member
64
7
Sep 10, 2019
Fairfax, Virginia
I'm not sure if I should be posting here or in the Drivetrain forums, but I have been experience very high resistance at low speeds, including in reverse. I have yet to find any other posts about this and was wondering if anyone could lead me in the right direction. I notice it at lower speeds it will be coasting in gear then all of a sudden it feels like someone hit the brakes. The only brake work I replaced were the rotors within the last 50 miles to fix a wobble at high speeds, this did not fix the issue entirely and I am wondering if it would be the calipers. Should I be looking anywhere else? Thank you.
 
If you can do it safely, take it out of gear next time you feel the resistance. If the resistance increases in neutral, then my bet is brake dragging. Maybe your calipers need to be shimmed a little.
 
You said a wobble at high speeds was not fixed and it feels like something dragging. My first thought is a caliper hanging up. Look for a rotor that is darker than the others and possibly the areas that would be rust colored would be more of an orange color. Both are typical of excess heat in the brakes. You could try jacking up each corner and spinning the tires but that isn’t always accurate as sometimes as the heat builds up it causes things to swell and it will stick more the hotter it gets and be fine when cooled down and show no signs other than discoloration.
 
If you can do it safely, take it out of gear next time you feel the resistance. If the resistance increases in neutral, then my bet is brake dragging. Maybe your calipers need to be shimmed a little.
Shimmed? I'm very curious about this. Honestly. Calipers are floating so I don't understand. Elaborate please.
 
Put it on jack stands and turn the wheels one by one to feel for drag. You can also put it in gear and coast for a minute or so then see if any rotors feel hotter than the others. When you put new rotors on, did all the calipers push back in evenly? Does the brake pedal spring back up when you release the brakes? If it doesn’t, you have a sticking caliper.
 
Thank you all for the responses. So I took it out and tried with the clutch held in and just rolling normally, and it only has the resistance while in gear. ( I still have the vibration at high speeds that increases when I hit the brakes just not consistently and I'll tackle that next). What would be the best recommended way to test the rear diff, transfer case, center diff? Pull the rear drive shaft and take her out? So I have replaced the seals on both the rear diff and transfer case as they were both leaking oil when I got her, alignment was done recently, all fluids changed recently as well. With the binding I am kind of confused why it wouldn't be constant with the drivetrain and only at a lower speed in gear coasting and happen suddenly and pretty hard. Thank you all again for the help.
 
Shimmed? I'm very curious about this. Honestly. Calipers are floating so I don't understand. Elaborate please.
New pads, new rotors, so everything has minimal clearances. If anything is misaligned, or if the caliper mounts are a little bent, the pads can drag on the rotors (or the rotors can drag on the caliper mounts). Shimming the calipers can help realign everything the way it should be, absent pounding on the mounts with a sledge.
I had to do it with mine. I don’t know if the pads I bought were out of spec or what, but both rear calipers were dragging on my rotors by about 0.6-1.0mm. Shimmed them, torqued them, and no more dragging.
 
I believe your experience but I would think you would be the outlier in this case. Brakes have to endure tremendous stresses. Short of accident damage I would think bending a mount isn't that easy. In addition the calipers float on the bolts (on a dsm) and they aren't super high tolerance. In 40 years I've never seen a brake drag for a bent mount. I have seen them drag for bad/rusty caliper bolts, rusty pistons, damaged pads, warped rotors and most recently an old brake line that deteriorated so badly internally it acted like a check valve. This was not all on DSMs either.
 
Thank you all for the responses. So I took it out and tried with the clutch held in and just rolling normally, and it only has the resistance while in gear. ( I still have the vibration at high speeds that increases when I hit the brakes just not consistently and I'll tackle that next). What would be the best recommended way to test the rear diff, transfer case, center diff? Pull the rear drive shaft and take her out? So I have replaced the seals on both the rear diff and transfer case as they were both leaking oil when I got her, alignment was done recently, all fluids changed recently as well. With the binding I am kind of confused why it wouldn't be constant with the drivetrain and only at a lower speed in gear coasting and happen suddenly and pretty hard. Thank you all again for the help.
What if anythiing have you changed lately? New tires? different tcase? Transmission work? Launched hard and it now does this? Is there any indication of cause recently or is this out of the blue?
 
So the only thing I actually changed will be the clutch to an ACT 2600 (? The one rated for 500 ft lbs). I am trying hard to think if it had this resistance before the clutch change. No launches, no hard driving as I just got it back from the tuner and the issue existed before it was tuned. The only other things I changed were seals on the transmission, Fluids, the fork was upgraded as well as the pivot ball and bearing. The resistance only seems to hit on deceleration in gear at low rpms. I can see if it is consistently in the exact same rpm range tomorrow if that could help narrow something down. This only recently has been able to be driven on the street and I for some reason have a feeling this existed before the clutch change however much much less resistance, but I could be wrong I only had it a year and it wasn’t driven much until recently.
 
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