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Can't shake this darn wobble

G

gferr56

CEG'er
Joined
Mar 11, 2009
Messages
71
Location
Laconia, New Hampshire
I've read many posts, comments, dope slaps... etc... in regard to suspension issues... so here's mine and I'm ready for the doh...:confused:

The car '95 GL, 2.0, MTX, 200,350 miles

Start here when I bought the car, 03/01/09 w/168k. Runs smooth as silk with very slight shimmy / wobble @70mph. Tires were nearing end of life so I didn't think much of it.

04/15 replaced the front two tires with no change in the shimmy / wobble.

06/30 Had a shop replace the RF wheel bearing as it started groaning like bad wheel bearings do. (I don't have, or have access to a press).

When I picked the car up, the shop said it was in overall very good condition considering it had that much milage on it. They suggested changing the right ball joint, left outer tie rod, both sway links and bushings, and 4 new tires (one of the front developed a cup, one of the rears had a bad belt)...

07/01 replaced the ball joint. No change in shimmy / wobble...

08/15 replaced all four tires, tie rod end and alignment. Still no change in shimmy / wobble.

09/20 tires rotated, two days later shimmy / wobble is now a near violent shake between 62mph & 76mph (at 77mph it virtually disappears)

Take it to the shop I consider repuatable where I have all my cars aligned. Puts it up on the lift with wheels spinning... I'm told that one of the new front tires is bad. He suggests that I replace that, and the sway links and bushings soon..

10/02 change the sway links and bushings... but still have the near violent shake

10/05 back to the tire shop and without much complaining they replace the suspect bad tire. That near violent shake it back to a shimmy / wobble.

10/30 back to the (alignment) shop.. He says everything is tight and suggests maybe a bad lot of tires... hummm...

10/31 back to the tire shop... they tend to agree seeing as I have all this paper work to back up what I'm complaining about... I get full credit for the tires purchased in August and they replace them with the next step up for an additional $80 out-of-pocket. I'm not complaining... they already have 10k on them...

Well... almost there.... but there's still a shimmy / wobble between 67mph & 72mph... a much narrower window, but still not smooth...

Where to look next... without shot-gunning parts...

How do I tell if the LCA bushings or strut bushings are worn out causing this annoyance...?
 
I would say at this point in time with 200K that the front control arm bushings are shot. you have 4 bolt control arms so there is a horizontal bar the control pivots on. if you look I bel one of the four of them is resting on the control arm with a load on it. I know I started getting a bad vibration when breaking at highways speeds when mine where really shot. take a look, the bushing might look torn up also.
 
Shimmy can be caused by bad LCA bushings as well as bad sway bar bushings. You will notice hard pulling while braking if you are on an uneven surface with bad LCA bushings. See diagram below:

steeringpull.jpg
 
I'll take a closer look at the LCA's and bushings specifically...

Will even try to get a photo or two if I can squeeze it into tomorrow's lunch time.. with the clocks going back to EST over the weekend its dark on the way into and home from work...

I'm 98% highway driving, so uneven roads aren't in the forcast, however, I will pay more attention with that 2%
 
Forget the sway bar bushings, if you are on level ground goind straight sway bar is unloaded and has no effect. Only comes into play when one side of front end warps out of parallel with other side, as in a turn, or bump or hole that only one side hits.
 
amc49 said:
Forget the sway bar bushings, if you are on level ground goind straight sway bar is unloaded and has no effect. Only comes into play when one side of front end warps out of parallel with other side, as in a turn, or bump or hole that only one side hits.
Click to expand...

I found that I had a bit of a shimmy on the highway when mine went bad. Dunno why, but I did. :shrug:
 
Probably because highways arent always level ground. They add a bit of a slope so that water drains to the side and doesn't pool up.
 
No, should be same as level. The sway bar does not exert any action until one wheel tries to go out of car's horizontal plane with the other. As long as road smooth, not enough angle from crown to warp bar from end to end. Only a BIG lean, such as cornering loads or firm curve make, stresses bar. We used to completely remove them on street/strip cars, you didn't notice at all until cornering, but you sure did then.
 
I would say lower control arm bushings are shot. Mine are pretty worn (if not pretty shot) and I get some vibration at 70-75 mph. Also, my steering wheel does shift a bit and the car pulls slightly when braking. Luckily, I will be replacing them soon.
 
Finally had a few minutes to get some pics...

I only took pics of the right side as that is where all the shimmy is coming from... Also, upon deeper investigation it seems that only right side components have been replaced before. I'm guessing a previous accident..

It'll be a few days before I get back... off for the annual upland game birds...

1.JPG

2.JPG

3.JPG

4.JPG

5.JPG
 
this might sound a little obvious ... but have you checked the rims themselves for dents/flatspots and buckles. I only suggest this because of the limited range of the vibration. Maybe you could rotate the rims and see if the shimmy changes in any way ... G
 
Agreed,
If rotation the tires made it worse, I would vote an improperly balanced tire.
-Andy
 
I agree with G and Andy... especially since tire changes have improved it the way they have. I would call the tire shop and ask them what your roadforce measurements were for each tire/rim combo, and if any of them were indexed, (for those that don't know, indexing a tire involves mounting it on the rim whereas the imperfections of the tire are on the opposite side of any imperfections in the rim, so as to help minimize the vibrrations caused by said imperfections). Indexing can become very time consuming so it's often avoided like the plague. Also, ask if they measured the rims for runout. If you've got a rim with excessive runout, (which sounds to be a good possibility IMO), the only complete cure is another rim.
 
When the shop pressed the bearing did they check if the hub was worn? It's enough for one bad bearing to seize once for inner race to slip on the hub. Once that happens, the hub is garbage and will always cause vibration even if you press in a new bearing. It will shift ever so slightly inside the inner race. There will be no play when you do the 12 and 6 test and wheel will rotate straight unless loaded.
 
gorman said:
this might sound a little obvious ... but have you checked the rims themselves for dents/flatspots and buckles. I only suggest this because of the limited range of the vibration. Maybe you could rotate the rims and see if the shimmy changes in any way ... G
Click to expand...

The wheel shop should immediately notice any bends. I know when I got a tire mounted on some rims I bought, the guy noticed the wobble/wavy-ness of the rim on the spin-balencer.

The control arm bushings look o.k. you can check by taking a crow bar and prying gently against the sides and top of the LCA's to check for movement. Does the car "shimmy" when braking?
 
90% of the tires out there have a dot of some sort on the sidewall, that dot is the heavy or light spot on the tire. It should be lined up with or opposite with the stem depending on what manufacturer says. That can be done almost instantly at tire install on rim. Issue is that many times the tire machine moves tire sideways on rim at install, throwing that mark off. If they changed sides on tire rotation, that could be a problem. Many now say you can change direction when rotating radial tires, but I have personally seen a car that ran fine suddenly start shaking like nobody's business from switching direction of rotation. If the tires have some time on them, can shake anyway. Tire that has begun to wear out of round on front will not shake because motor/trans weight stop that. Same tire rotated to back will then shake because no weight to dampen it out like on the old rear wheel drive axles. Put back on front, it goes back to no shake. Seen that one a bunch of times. Jack up wheel and spin it, you will see the tire runout bad, it works fine on front but not back. Balance will have no effect on that, cannot correct for out of round.
 
gorman

"this might sound a little obvious ... but have you checked the rims themselves for dents/flatspots and buckles."

Yes, I've checked the rims, front / back & inside / outside... all true...

SicSE

"I agree with G and Andy... especially since tire changes have improved it the way they have."

That's why I went back... they agreed the tires were most likely from a bad lot and gave me full credit for them. The ride is much better and the wobble is in a closer window, but still there.

over 30K

"When the shop pressed the bearing did they check if the hub was worn? "

That is one thing I forgot to enter.. Yes the hub was bad when the bearing was done, and replaced at the same time.

greasemonkey1489

"The control arm bushings look o.k. you can check by taking a crow bar and prying gently against the sides and top of the LCA's to check for movement. Does the car "shimmy" when braking?"

No, sure and steady braking at any speed. I'll give them a nudge with the c-bar and see if there is any movement.



Thanks for all the suggestions... We'll figure this thing out sooner or later.
 
Bent rims, high spots in tires. Usally you can let go of the wheel at a low speed and see it rock.

One thing I did notice lately on mine was a shutter put new axles in and seem to take most of it out, but also my control arms are in need of replacement. Might just slap the doorman arms on for 80 buck each.

I know inner CV will cause some problems, more underload than coasting. But if they are worn out, they tend to vibrate. Not saying this is your problem. But something to also look into.

I did have one car with after market rims one time, that was missing the plastic hub rings. the wheel would spin fine on the machine, but the car had a very bad shake on the highway. There is some rims that center on the hub, and some that will center with the lugs... There was a good write up one time in Motor. This car needed the rings. You could see the whole wheel hop on the lift as it was brought up to speed, the car started to shake on the lift... It wasn't the tire or the rim, just the fact that the wheel wasn't centering correctly on the hub.
 
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