Got the death shimmy today

Now I understand why they call it the death shimmy. Scared the crap out of me. Must be harmonic in nature because it was quick and violent .

My alignment is good and the steering is tight. I'm thinking it's my hubs and I'm going to buy the proper large thin wall socket to tighten them up. The way they are now the washer was folded over to lock the nut in place and it not tight enough.

 

check the tierod ends and shackel bolts too.fun huh......

 

are those steering stabilizer shocks worthwhile?

 

the steering stabilizer is more of a bandaid the only time you really needone is with oversized tires find the route of the problem then decide wether you need a stabilizer

 

thanks
just curious...

 

Check the wheel weights too- out of balance tires can contribute to the problem

 

King-pin (knuckle) bearings and shims.

 

Easy tightening the spindle nuts down. Get them too tight and it’ll wear out your hub bearings in not time.

 

Check the spring bushings as well as the U-bolt torque in addition to the above.

 

I had the death wobble and it went away when I got my tires rebalanced.

 

I'll tear into it this weekend. Thank you.

 

I have never, and will never, own a vehicle with conventional steering (aka, tierod - not rack & pinoin) that does not have a steering stabilizer. They may, in fact, be a bandaid, but they get rid of the referenced "death shimmy" that I have experienced in 3 old vehicles.
I never buy the expensive "offroad" ones, just get a cheap one. Many moon ago, VW used them because you could not get rid of the shimmy on some of them. They were teeny cylinders ... but killed the shimmy in my '52 Ford F-1, driven by a crazy kid in the '70's. Sure, it needed king pins, and probably other stuff ... but ran straight down the road for 15 more years with NO shimmy

 

I had death wobble bad last year (and I have a steering stibilizer). This time it turned out to be the U-bolts (springs to axle tube).

One way to help find the problem is to have someone grab the front bumper and move the front end of the vehicle back and forth while you eyeball all parts of the front end. Change to new tie rods if the old ones are at all old. Have the tires balanced.

Let us know what it turns out to be.

 

I have been doing a lot of running around on dirt roads and trails and things this last year and wasn't as diligent as i should have been about checking the tire pressure. Ran down the 50 mph section of road out here (paved) and had the ol' Wobble thing going on. Upped the pressure to 32 psi from down around 18 or so and the Wobble went away. You might look into that.