I knew I should have stopped in today after I picked up the Gmc, I would have went for a ride...I ain't a-scared of nothin' . Glad it's driving good now. And the Michal K's was the best. good call. thanks again, Frank
Dennis...basically the king pin was lose in the axle. I tightened the pin that holds the axle. Really tight! I thought it would only be a temp fix but Dick thinks it may hold. I also changed the only tierod end that wasn't new but I think the axle was more the problem. Clark
clark so to recap, essentially the cause of the "dreaded death wobble TM" were your loose nuts... interesting.... on another note.. I was gonna call you... I wanted to offer you a ride to columbus... you can ride "bitch" with me and tokyo.. we'll let you sit in the middle... (of the back seat.. by yourself) get back to work... jeff
I posted my shimmy problem on here recently also. I had a couple of buddies help me set the toe in,which was way off, to close to neutral. That got rid of the death wobble I would encounter upon hitting any kind of a bump. I now get a moderate bad shimmy at 52 MPH and not as bad above that speed . I'm symptom free below 52??? I have about 8 deg caster . I reduced it from 10 deg when I reworked the chassis recently. I also have a SoCal steering damper which did help when I installed it a while back. I'm going to try re-balancing the wheels and see if that helps. As far as I can tell everything in the steering is as tight as a hat band. Ironically, I never had this problem when I first put the car together. BTW, the top of my wheels lean inward quite a bit. Dont know if camber matters?
clark, this post got me thinking again about talking to you at latimore...and now i see a picture do you think that the draglink coming off the pitman arm running down hill is causing bump steer to the left and then the 10degree caster causing the wobble? for some reason thats what keeps coming to mind... im glad your starting to sort it out...maybe soon we'll get these damn cars on the road...im having windsheild issues good luck zach
For what it is worth I have had the same problems on my Duece. When I built it in 1988 it was perfect ( beginners luck), but when I rebuilt it in 1998 I lowered the front end and changed tire sizes. I checked everything out and nothing was out of whack. It would wobble and shake under 30 mph on occasion. I tried a panhard bar, but it only helped a little. I finally broke down and put a SoCal dampner on it and it solved all my problems. But I have to add that all cars are different even if it is the same setup as someone else's. So what works for one car might not for another. I have over 115,000 miles on the Duece so you know I like to drive it. i have had the dampner on for the last 40,000 and have no complaints.
I run over 10 degrees caster in my coupe's front axle. It works great for high speeds. I have had no problems at low speeds unless the front tire pressure is low. If my front tires are low it will do EXACTLY what you describe yours is doing.
Hey Clark, I didn't read the whole post so I'm sure someone has mentioned it...but my roadster had the same problem when I rebuilt the front end and decided to ditch the steering damper. It would pull the wheel right out of my hands. So the damper went right back on and I've never had that problem again. -Jeff
This is an old post. I fixed it by tightening the bolt that goes through the axle to hold the kning pin. Eventually it wore down and the woble came back. I put a dampener on as a temporary fix but will fix the axle before it gets delivered to it's new owner. Clark
I tightened the bolts on the axle on the Fly, it helped but the wobble is still there. It only does it after the run. Usually on the return road or when it gets close to stopping. Wierd. Gonna add a little caster and see what happens.
I have my kingpin lock bolts drawn up almost flush. I don't know if they make an oversize bolt or not.....I may look into the dampner, it's that bad.
It's been my experience that more caster makes it worse. Used the front axle and split wishbones off a street driven '34 Ford (that never had the shakes) and pie cut the wishbones to give 15 degrees of caster on my B/A Bantam. Never had a problem at low speed but if you hit a little bump on the top end, the wheels would shake so hard they were just a blur, plenty disconcerting at 145 or better. Looked at everything from the steering box through the king pins, everything seemed OK, maybe we missed something that wasn't tight enough. Finally put a damper on it and cured the problem and I'm not the kind of person that likes to add a "fix", especially weight on the front end of a race car. I remember seeing dampers on lots of pro dragsters and funnys in the '70s and '80s, haven't looked lately.
1. Loose parts? (loose bolt on front end parts, like bolt on steering arms ect.)....suspect this first... make sure they are all tight!... or worn kingpins... or worn tie rod ends...) =play 2. Too low tire pressure? = play in tire sidewall A Steering dampner. = helps tighten (or slow down) play ************************************************************ on a quiet night.......................................you can hear a Ford rust
The reason my wife's Old Skool "A" roadster is so stable on the road is the panhard bar we put on the front. It has all new kingpins, bushings and bearings and all the geomety is right-on the money (6-7 degrees of caster, 1/8" toe-in) but if you look at one of these things sitting static, without a panhard bar I can induce axle side-to-side movement by grabbing the framerail and pushing it side to side really hard.......it has enough "give" in the shackles to allow it to move even just a tiny bit. With the properly installed bar......it has no (zero, nada, none) movement. I betcha it'll go 150 mph "hands off"...... if it only had the power! I think that no matter what, a dampener is a band-aid.
Clark, there is a 10 thousandth over size king pin available. I had to use one in a '32 axle, and it did the trick.
I haven't been around here for a while - been doing some other stuff. Thought I would check in and I think I have something to offer here. Jack up the front end and step back and watch the bottoms of the front tires while someone turns the steering wheel lock to lock. You will notice with more than normal caster that the bottom of the tires will rise as the steering gets close to full turn and the tire leans over more. Have you ever bounced an inflated tire and hit it a little off to one side? Notice how it will bounce to the other side. Do you see where this is going? With more caster, the tires will rise (in relation to the car) more and they will lean over more the steeper the turning angle. When you hit a bump with one tire it starts bouncing from side to side. I can see how reducing the caster will stop this. Tracy
The Jalopy Journal
