Can the front wheel toe cause a wobble? The toe on my 51 Chevy was WAAAY out, about a half inch. I have adjusted it alot closer, but now I get a pretty bad wobble. Is it possible that these are related? Or maybe the wobble is something new that I have just noticed since setting the toe.
Your shimmy has probably more to do with worn parts, castor, or out of round tires than toe in. Does it do it all the time or just after hitting a bump?
You need less toe-in with radial tires, 1/8" is good for bias ply, but 1/16" is good for radials as radials have less rolling resistance. Adjusting your toe-in may have brought to light problems that were already there. Used to be an old used car dealer trick to toe the front wheels out a little to keep a prospective buyer from feeling handling problems due to worn front end components.
I would start looking for worn parts also. The toe adjustment just added to what ever was already worn out.
It happens mostly just after hitting a bump. And then it lasts until I slow WAY down. The tires were badly worn from the incorrect alignment, worn clear thru the first layer of steel belts. I got new ones but haven't installed them yet, I was looking for warn parts before I put them on.
First check the third arm for play in the bushings. It's the Y shaped link on the back of the X-member. Grab it and heave up and down, HARD! There should be no play in it, any at all will cause a shimmy on some cars, others will stand a bit. Next, check the king pins. A hint...if you have to pull the front end apart, find a set of '53-54 uprights, they lower the front an inch or so.
"Steel belts sticking through"? Damn, man, get that junk off the car. Fix the things that YOU know are wrong and then come back with questions. Want to add "duh" but will just smile instead.
Caster angle, or lack thereof is what causes wobble. Think of those stupid shopping carts with the one wheel constantly oscillating.
The uprights are Fatman, they are only a few months old. How much play if any should there be in the kingpin? They are already replaced. Some nice new Goodyears are on it now.
make sure it hasn't WOBBLED the toe way out again,, make sure your tires (thank goodness you swapped them) are balanced properly, and like the boys said, check for loose suspension/steering parts,,,you don't know how many times i've told customers that i can align their car, but a bad idler arm, control arm or tie rod end will make it NOT worth their time,,,,and it'll be back out of alignment within a SHORT amount of time,,,, xoxox miss hootch
I would check the shocks the only really bad wobble I have had was from shocks that are broken in half.
Dave tree'd me. Check your shocks. I had that problem on my '62 Suburban. It'd wobble at different speeds, rpm... only constant I could figure out was when I pushed in the clutch it would clear up. Turns out pushing in the clutch broke the "cadence" of the suspension by taking the power out of it, and the wobble would go away. I was working up front and pulled the shocks one day--they collapsed by hand, and didn't rebound at all. Replaced them, and the wobble was gone. -Brad
Its not the shocks. I was looking at it some more and I think it may be the third arm. There is a little play in it and in the kingpins. I need to see if there is anyway to adjust the third arm...
Whats the best way to get the play out of the third arm? Is it like a kingpin? If I grab it and the link to the steering box, and move/pull up on them together, I get some play, up and down. Who has a rebuild kit?
Rebuild kits are available from the usual companys... Chevs of the 40s, the filling station or National chevy. I did mine and made a world of difference.
OK cool. I am glad there are kits available. I bet that Car SHop would have them. Unfortunatly my catalog fell in the toilet...
"Unfortunatly my catalog fell in the toilet... " Kinda getting into that "too much information" area, aren't we?<!-- / message -->
The Jalopy Journal
