Suedes Car Club
General => General Discussion => Topic started by: Tom on August 28, 2007 2:57 pm
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Got this off the HAMB. Hope it helps with your front end problem.
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1. Did you properly adjust the steering box before you installed it? That is by Factory specifications and procedures?
2. New toe rod ends all around?
3. You might try bumping your caster up a bit to 5-7 degrees positive, that is the top of the axle tilts to the rear 5-7 degrees from vertical, and changing yout toe-in to 1/8".
4. This low-speed shimmy is symptomatic of bad kingpin bushings and worn front end components at the low speed and slightest bump sets it off.
"Low-speed shimmy is usually caused by under-inflation or looseness of wheels, wheel bearings, worn spindle bearings or bushings, tie rod, drag link, steering gear or spring mountings usually in conjunction with too much caster or toe-in.
Low-speed shimmy is often caused by the same conditions that cause high-speed tramp.
Either too much caster or too little caster may cause low-speed shimmy, whereas only too little caster causes high-speed tramp."
from 1936 Ford wheel alignment and service manual
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Thanks for the info sir! I actually went through everything again to make sure nothing was out of wack or broke. Everything turned out alright. Ran into Ryan at BTT50's and he said he was having the same trouble I was. Told me to have the tires/wheels road force balanced.
Was on the HAMB one day and they were talking about this road force balancing. Most agreed that this was a good way to get bias plys to stop "dribbling". A few suggested another alternative was to have the tires "shaved" to make them round again. Most bias plys made out of the US are not round, even some made in the US (Coker). The only problem with shaving the tires is that most of this equipment is non-existant and most of the old timers that know how to run it are dead.
I had one guy tell me to do a burn out to make them round. He said he did it on his and it seemed to work. At first I wasn't too sure about it but figured even if it didn't work it would be fun and I would have a reason to piss off the neighbors.
Took tires/wheels off front, swapped to back. Drove up against the side of my shop and popped the clutch. After about 15 seconds... Walla!
Put tires back on front and headed out on the road. It usually started to bounce at about 40 mph. Got to 65mph with hardly any shake or wobble. Figure if I took them back to be balanced again they should be almost perfect.
I don't know if any you want to use this as a cure all, it is rather cruel but it did seem to help my problem. (and it is fun)
The only drawback is I did take a few miles off of the tires. Oh well, I wanted a set of white walls anyway.