steering vibration

I still have a vibration in the steering wheel on my 52 Chevy pickup with a Mustang II front end after doing everything I can think of to fix it. The wheels and tires are balanced, it rides really smooth going down the road, but you can feel every pebble on the road throught the steering wheel. I have 3 borgeson u-joints. Everything is tight and the toe-in is very close, it drives straight. I was told that the vibration reducers don't help much, anybody know anything on this? Would a rag joint instead of a U-joint help?

Thanks,
Devin

 

rag joint would probably help.

are the cab mounts kind of rubbery or solid?

 

Three joints equals two shafts, one of which does pass through a pillow block or rod end, doesn't it? Just checking to be sure.

 

kit mustang II or homemade? who installed it? I have seen a mustang II installed a good 1" to the rear on one side. you didn't even need to measure it was so bad.

what column? how's it mounted? manual or power rack?

did you get it aligned by a competent mechanic? toe in is how close? should be like 1/8 " wider at the backside.

is it a consant vibration or only when you hit a bump? lots of unanswered questions

 

what kind of angles on the joints? new setup or high mileage? borgeson U-joints or something that someone found somewhere else???

 

I'd try a rag or vibration dampening joint before I got too carried away. Had the same problem and the rag joint cured the problem.

 

the crossmember is a fatman, I installed it and it is straight. Yes I do have a support bearing on one of the shafts. The rack is a manual flaming river and the column is a stock gm one I got at a swap meet. They are brand new borgeson u-joints, one of them is almost at its angle limit, the other two aren't angled much at all. I checked the toe in with a slide rule and its toed in 1/8". I think that's all the info you asked for.
I think I am going to try an inline vibration reducer in the shaft closest to the column.

thanks
Devin

 

Does the vibration seem to be related to engine RPM?
A gal at work had one of these pickups - a five window - and it was running a later model inline 6, 250 cid I'm pretty sure.

She'd get a vibration on curves and sometimes on the highway.

Drivers side motor mount was broken.

It could also be an unbalanced fan and you're feeling that.
Pull the V-belt and take it for a short drive.
Even revving it in neutral - 3000 rpm would be enough - could show if there's an engine unbalance problem.

As for the "feeling every pebble" bit, too much air pressure in the tires?

An out of balance driveshaft may be the cause of the vibration.
You can isolate that from the engine by getting up to speed and depressing the clutch.
If the vibration goes away, check the engine, if it stays, check the U-joints and driveshaft runout.

Any chance an engine component is contacting the support bearing or steering column?
Is the body contacting the engine or trans?

Any chance you have a bent wheel, out of round wheel or out of round tire?

How were the tires balanced?
If they were done on a bubble balancer you could have an out of plane imbalance.


There's a lot of cars running around out there that don't have a steering column vibration reducer of any kind and they run smooth.

Looking from here, I'd do some more checking before adding a column vibration reducing device.