Have a problem with my p***enger side front tire bouncing. Seems to start at about 50 mph and gets worse the faster you go. I've switched the tires from one side to the other along with the shocks and still the bounce shows up on the same side. What else would cause this to happen? I'm running Vega cross steer, Reverse eye spring, bias plys. Toe in is at 1/8" with 7 degrees on the axle. ???????????
I have been fighting that same one wheel bounce in the front for three years now. No solution yet, the only thing that seemed to help was a really good tire balance. Now its only there from 50-55 then its gone and its not constant, it comes and goes. But never too violent wher I cannot drive it or feel unsafe driving it. I have tried three different sets of tires (radials and biased), alligned 4 times, 2 different sets of shocks, checked balance of drums, checked wheel roundness, switched wheels and tires sided to side numerous times, played with air pressures, .... Next I am going to try and balance wheels with the drums, if I don't go broke first trying to figuire this one out. Good luck.
What tire's?? A good friend has had nothing but problem's with Firestone bias ply's in the 15" dia.. He's got 2 34 Fords with the same tires, both car's had a shake that started at 55 or so. We've done a ton of work to both to try and solve it, simple stuff like balancing all the way to different springs etc.....and it came down to tires on one car and tires and a possible rim on the other. Might not be your problem, and as simple as it sounds, swap the front wheels and tires with another pair if you can.. After spending week's chasing it with both of these...that's what solved it..... I drove his coupe 1600 miles from here to Indy and back and the shake was unreal..we got to indy and actually replaced the kingpins ( slightly worn), rebalanced all 4 tires again and that did nothing.. We then had the front tires shaved and it helped..you could actually see the out of round in them as they were being turned, and it wasn't the rim's.. Just a thought.
I'll try that out. I know there's a few sets of 16" front runners around town. Someone also mentioned that I may need to put a panhard bar on it. Think that would do it????
Find an old tire shop in your area with a tire shaver. Bias tires are notorious for being out of round. Had mine done and now smooth as gl***.
I had the same prob and fought it for months.My tires looked good or so i thought (old vintage 16'firestone www,)i finally went to a major tire dealer that had the machine thats more advance than your run of the mill tire balancer and it turned out my old tires were out of round and could not fix no matter how much we tried to balance
Tony, I have had it with my wire wheels with biased tires, my steel fords with Coker radials and my 40 ford rims with old biased tires. Allways right front bounces, some worse than others, checked the front end out numerous time and alligned twice by me and twice on my buddies allignment rack. Its like that christmas song where the lights wont stop blinking. My freaking tire won't stop bouncing! But its not extreme just a little annoying and tough on the radiator.
I hear ya Jim.. John's sedan and coupe are the car's i'm talking about.. He's done everything including indexing the drum's to the wheels and balancing as a unit......... We spent 4 week's chasing the shake in the sedan before we headed to the Showdown.. The coupe was unreal. The left front on that would shake, violently at time's, especially right around 65 mph..Actually, it's more of a hop.. The only way i could describe it was when a boat chime walks, bouncing side to side..wild... His tire's are Coker Firestone's. He called them to inquire and they did say they have had out of round issues with the Firestone 16", but not the 15's...
The trick is to have tires shaved so that they are true. That is only if the are bias plys. They do this alot with 4X4 tires with aggresive thread.
Do you have the wheel weights only on the inside of the wheel? This will cause tires to be out of balance, as the balancing machines will add more weight to the back of the rim to compensate for balance issues that require weight on the outside AND on the inside of the rim. When I worked in a tire shop that was one of the hardest things to get customers to understand. Just because the machine says "0" when you place the weights inside doesn't mean the tire is balanced.
I had the same problem on the front suspension of my race car. I had a Model front axle; and the steering arms were coming loose. But the root cause was, not only the Houdallie shocks, but the tires were outta round; and the wheels were run out. Those shook everything loose!
Ain't nothing like high dollar out of round tires ! Why can't they be mounted trued and then sent to the cutomer, unmounted ? I have 2 cars same problem ! No truing machines in my hilljack county !
Is there a big truck repair place around? Some of them have the tire shaving machine's from years ago..That's how we got the one's on my buddy's coupe done. It was a truck shop in the middle of NOWHERE outside Jamestown Indiana.. On the truck's that were long hauler's it wasn't uncommon for them to have to shave the tires to true them up.. And i couldn't agree more on the tires.. It's not like they are cheap by any means..not sure how a large company would solve the problem, but i've heard of enough issue's that something should be done. I personally had problem's with some new bias ply's i ran....
heres my last scenario...car was still rough riding , and slightly shaking after hitting some decent bumps...i took the front spring apart and got it down to the main and 1 long leaf...drove it down the road , still rough....got it home and started taking it back apart , and decided to try it without the shocks....other than no dampning , it rode like a totally different car....switched to a pair of pro shocks....made a world of difference....might try it .... brandon
That was on my line of thinking. I have seen a few drums that were quite a bit out of balance right out of the box. A couple of more things to look into. See if you can find a shop that still has an on the car wheel balancer. The strobe light style would be the best but a Hunter wiith the hub that clamps to the rim will work if you can find one with the correct size adapter. Jack the wheel up and with something to check runout turn the wheel and see if you do have excessive runout. Most tire shops have a runout gage with a dial indicator and a wheel that rolls on the tread of the tire. At least in the days of bias tires they did. If you have excessive runout. Break down the tire and rotate it on the rim half a turn and inflate it and see how it checks out. Quite often you can get the runout down to where it is managable by that method and you can also get a better balance on the tire that way in some cases.
Firestone Bias Ply's **** and always out of round. Nothin like spending all that hard earned cash to go find a tire shaver. Tires will bounce like crazy around 60mph. Just my 2cent's.
I had problems with 2 sets of Coker 16" Firestone dirt track fronts. Switched to Metzler's and balanced the wheel/tire/drum as a single unit and solved the problem.
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