was driving my 30 A coupe tonight and was making a slow right hand turn when I hit some bumps in the road and my front wheels were shaking side to side uncontrollably like and old fed car? I had to complety stop to get it to stop. I have a drop axle with pan hard bar 6 deg. caster, also using cowl steering (F 100 box) car drives great! this is the first time any thing like this has happened... any suggestion? thanks
Do a search on "Death wobble" Its a topic that's come up many time's over the years, and many guy's have it. I know a good friend of mine had it in his 34 coupe...after messing around with just about everything in the front end, he swapped the steering box out and it finally solved the problem. He was running the stock 34 box, and although it felt tight it was loose enough to create the problem... He switched to an F100 as well. Just one thing i've seen do it.
I have the exact same problem.I had it alighned,and it still does it,but only when I'm driving slow.It drives fine at normal speeds,nothing to do but come to a complete stop,and start over.Mines a 4'' drop axle spring behind with hairpins.
I remember this wobble from the old days with half worn out stock steering components on some of the old junkers I had when I was a teenager back in the 50s and was driving old worn out Fords that really shouldn't have been on the road in their condition. Also had it in the 80s with a 4 wheel drive truck with a mild lift and 11"X35" tires when the hydraulic steering damper cylinder that came stock wore out. New cylinder fixed it. Wonder if there's a way to adapt one to a hot rod without looking too bad or being too stiff? The truck was power steering. Dave
i do believe what could correct this is ,check to see if your steering arm that runs forward from the cowl is as close to parallel with your wishbone or hair pin or what ever set up your running. i think it is a must that the two bars run as close to level as possible to get the wobble to stop never had this set up on any of my own but i have encountered it with friends rides if it caant be done you may want to look into vega cross steer set up in the future, my two cents good luck
Do a search. There has been plenty posted about this and your solution will be among the threads that have addressed this problem. As the old time farmers used to say "already plowed this ground" Frank
Try this thread. Dick Spadaro explains the process to find any issues. I just went through it and found my wobble issues.............tires and brake drums. http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=268705
And it ain't just an old car thing. Newer Jeeps do this a lot, all the ones with straight axle and coils. And it's rarely caused by the same thing, but I'd start by thoroughly checking and balancing the wheels, and make sure the tires are round and true. If that doesn't fix it move on to check EVERY component, it doesn't take much looseness on some components (like panhard) to produce death wobble. But get it fixed soon, otherwise the shaking loosens other parts and it gets harder and harder to track down. I've even seen this happen on Jeeps when the brakes were hanging up a little (common problem on Jeeps), hit a small bump or something, the tire stops turning when the weight unloads and then comes back down and starts the wobble. I had an old 50 Ford truck that did it really bad when I got it, turned out to be the kingpins.
Bump steer and death wobble are two entirely different things, if you ever get death wobble, you'll know why they call it that.
For safety and good road manners, you need to check everything for looseness first. Everything that attaches to the front end and where it attaches to the car and all the linkages. When all that is good, then check for centering the steering box at the dead ahead position and adjust the drag link accordingly. This is REALLY important, but everything else must be tight, too. Spring shackles need to be free moving and not binding also. DICK SPADARO convinced me. Search the death wobble threads that he has posted on. Mines fixed and wooble free now. No damper for me. Frank
You got that right..I drove my buddy's 34 and it happened to me as well... It's some scary shit if your not ready for it, and sometime's scary even if you are. Noting you can do but try to hold it straight and stop as soon as possible.
Is "tramping" the same as bump steer or death wobble? I had a 54 Dodge pickup where if you hit a pothole just right the front end would shake, all it would take to stop it would be to hit the brakes. Tom
The death wobble I use to get on the 50 truck I mentioned GOT WORSE when you hit the brakes, you had to just let off the gas gradually and let it slow down on it's own while just hanging onto the wheel and trying to keep it on the road, and it was really scary!
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