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My car has always had wheel wobble since i did the lift and fitted the bigger tyres but I took it greenlaning the other day for the first time and now the wheel wobble is so bad between 20 - 40mph the car is undrivable.
I though the panhard rods might have been loose but have tightened them up and the problem is still there. Could it be the bearings which might have been bad before when i had the wheel wobble and since smashing the car about off road it had totally killed the bearings?
just check play in every joint and check wheel balancing as above if all is fine it will most likely be king pins needed or just shimming to give strength and a solid feel should sort it then
Due to the design of the front wheel bearings it can be difficult to detect any wear by hand. I had terrible wheel wobble at 36mph and it went when a changed a front wheel bearing. I could feel no play in it on the car when jacked up or when I had the hub off in my hand.
I also could not see a problem with the bearing once I pressed it out of the hub but changing it fixed the wobble.
I don't know if you can always feel kingpin bearings when they first start to fail either but they will still cause wheel wobble.
My advice would be to change the kingpin bearings if they have not been done by you before and give the CV's and wheel bearings a good grease up with some of the various waterproof greases you will have read about on here recently. Use hylomar blue on any joints, such as under the kingpins and on the freewheeling hubs.
If they don;t solve it, you at least know the state of your kingpin bearings and then move on to change the front wheel bearings.
Obviously make sure all your track control arms are in good nick first as you don;t want to go through all that trouble just to find it was one of them! The same applies to the front radius arm bushes. If they are cracked replace them before bearings.
Changing things systematically like this I think is the only way to ensure good maintenance and that everything is as healthy as can be.
I have changed all bearings and all bushes and now I know how old everything is and what is has been through.
It's not cheap in money or time though! Martin's prices in the Bigjimny shop are good though.
Kirkynut
The underdog often starts the fight, and occasionally the upper dog deserves to win - Edgar Watson Howe.
I had this a few years ago on a works pickup (a "mis-hap" meant it was recovered by tractor :whistle: ) - all the suspension was checked by our on site mechanic, none of the wheel weights were visually missing and all the mud had been steam cleaned off from underneath - we had one of the apprentices take the all the wheels of and clean the underside and everything - still the wheel wobble occurred. We resorted to taking into the local tyre place who followed the same system as us, they even went out in it to feeel the shakes for themselves. They eventually took the wheels of to check the wheel weights again, and came to the conclusion that we hadnt lost any. They then put the wheels on the balancing machine, only to find that one of the rims had been slightly buckled. With a few wheel weights added, it was fixed. They said its fairly rare to buckle a rim and it not be noticeable, but it does happen now and again
