Gen4 - rocking side to side at speed

Hello JimnyScott-

You tried the right things, reducing weight and increasing tyre pressure (higher than normal in the rear, right?).

The other thing to check would be the position of the weight relative to COG. Too much too high, or hanging heavy things off the rear, will have bad effects. Remember that a Gen4 Jimny has a very low weight limit, and also the centre of gravity is somewhere around the 4WD lever. Too much weight or weight that is too far from that point will make the little car squirmy.

Wheel nuts? On the LCV with steelies, I am going to say won't matter at all.

Failed shock absorbers might come into play at higher mileages, probably not in your case though.

I generally just re tightened them, they weren’t bad just a little nip up, but I did use my new torque meter to check they were the correct torque, I just done a search for the correct value, I can’t remember the torque was now, I was trying the new meter on everything,

A couple of years ago, I hit a big rock in long grass on a trail. I thought nothing of it as there was no visual damage apart from a ding in the front diff and a few scrapes on the rear. On the way home, I could not go over 80kph without the car swaying side to side. When I got home, I got underneath and with the handbrake up, rocked the car back and forth. I noticed excessive movement on the left rear radial arm on the chassis side. Tightening the radial arm bolt cured the problem. 

Shocks can last as little as 3 years, and I have also had them fail sooner. A dud shock will cause problems with handling.

I've been torquing my wheel nuts to 100nm on the jimny. I arrived at that figure from a bit of web searching. I'm sure if that value isn't correct someone will be along shortly to point out the correct number.

Dan wrote:

I've been torquing my wheel nuts to 100nm on the jimny. I arrived at that figure from a bit of web searching. I'm sure if that value isn't correct someone will be along shortly to point out the correct number.

The workshop manual lists 100Nm for wheel nuts, so you're spot on!

Update: I've fixed it! It was the shocks. Swapped out the OME set for Bilsteins and it's all back to normal.

I'm no mechanic, but is it safe to assume that this isn't normal (see video):

youtube.com/shorts/Pks8g3bXuMQ?si=WV9gJFLwFyQMT-V-