Try this before spending too much money, jump up and down on the front frame horns to get the suspension traveling. See if the steering wheel moves back and forth when you do this.
Worn or lose perch bolts can also cause wobble or shimmy by allowing the axle to rotate a small amount on the drivers side when pushed or pulled by drag link, you can check this visually while someone moves the steering wheel side to side or hold the axle and radius rod and do the same and feel for movement. JW
We do string alignment here all the time. Then I always have my buddy put it on his alignment rack and check me. I find the most difficult part is not “total toe” but individual left toe and right toe. Being off there also moves camber when the king pin inclination comes off zero. I’m very anal about getting the front axle square to the center line of the chassis so the individual L/R toe numbers can be equally off zero when total toe is on the money.
I know someone said to try less tire pressure but, I had a bad wobble problem on my Model A and after replacing king pins, tires, adjusting toe-in, tire balance many times and all I added MORE air in the tires. Fixed it! all it needed was 30psi. never a problem again.
A trick i use to determine pressure for any tire is to put a strip of masking tape across the tire and drive on a straight road and see where the tape wears. JW
Just a thought, shackles and spring U-bolts as well as spring locating dowel in front X-member? Could tyres be out of round, might need a shave to correct imbalance going by wheel weights?
Surprised me also, like I said I tried everything I could think of, read all the threads about this problem, nothing worked. I don't know what made me try more air but I knew it did not have this problem when I first got it on the road, it just started one day and was getting worse. Even after mounting the new tires and putting in something like 25psi or so, they were still bouncing. I just tried putting 30 or 32 psi in and all was good. I even tried sanding the old tires round with a large disc sander, balance beads, etc...man, I spent money on this and could have fixed it for free. Now, my problem may not be the same as what you have, mine were bouncing like basketballs, one side then the other starting about 20-25 MPH, not sure if it took a bump to get it started if so it was not much of a bump. Anyway, good luck and let us know what you find out.
I saw a post on here with a very neat frame mount for a so cal steering stabiliser . Now I cannot find it can anyone give me link to it . I have split wish bones so will have to make a something .
If you've got, Geometry spot-on, No worn components, Tire/rim/drum/rotor balance, Tire centerline ~ kingpin axis to ground intersect, (min. offset) Then it's tire pressure & possibly, no damper needed.
A pan hard bar mounts axle to the frame. Steering stabilizer A.k.a. shimmy shock mounts tie rod to axle. as far as shackles and bushings go there’s some bad fucking parts out there. The shoulders are short and pinch the bushings that’s not good. It will bind up the natural movement.
I made a little mount to bolt one end of the damper to my bone and the other end clamps to the tie rod.
Yo don't know if it's 7.9 without knowing whether or not the floor is level (zero degrees). If garage floor slopes, then the amount of slope must be taken into consideration.
Toe-in (or -out) is simply the difference between the transverse distance between the left and right tire centerlines, front vs rear of the tires, when the wheels are pointing nominally straight ahead. The notion of having different toe-ins for each the left and right tires is completely meaningless, with regards to the car's road manners. The only impact of such a disparity is to the driver's brain, which may not want to tolerate the steering wheel spokes not being horizontal when going straight. It is pointless to attempt measurement of this. After the desired toe-in has been set (turning of tie-rod, presuming left and right threaded rod ends), the steering wheel orientation can be adjusted by turning the drag link, again assuming left and right threads (there is no reason to do this until you have eliminated the real problems). This will probably require a trial-and-error process, since you will need a "test drive" after each adjustment. Note that the amount of camber of the road surface will have a slight affect on steering wheel orientation. Also, any lack of "squareness" of the rear axle will cause a degree of "crabbing" of the car when on a straight roadway. Note that if the steering wheel turns to left lock vs to right lock is much different, you can decide if you care, or rotate the Pitman arm, steering wheel, or a steering shaft at a splined joint, if possible. After all is done, make sure there is adequate thread engagement at each tie rod.
I guess that’s pretty common thinking, sure fits with the common problems I get to fix. Of course it’s all meaningless until there’s some “Really Smart” mysterious forces trying yank the steering wheel out of their hands. I like it when you critique my posts desmo, keeps me on my toes and keeps me honest.
It's hard to get a pic but nothing fancy. Just took some 1x1 square tubing and made two angle cuts forming a pyramid shape. Threaded some holes and bolted it to the bone. Got the idea from somebody else's on the HAMB.
Brilliant . Just making one now . Tracking is now spot on so test drive tonight . The roads in England are really quite just now
1/8 inch toe in, 3 to 6 degrees caster, I'd do 5 degrees and it'll go straight down the road, dynamic balance the wheels on the car and you'll be set.
I have fixed death wobble on all manner of leading-link vehicles with front axles, from Model Ts, to 4x4 rigs. In almost every case, the solution involved 1/16"-1/8" toe OUT.
I totally agree with the TOW OUT. I learned the Tow Out trick form the T-bucket guys that ran those skinny Halicraft wire wheels. I ran 1/32 tow OUT and added a SoCal dampner on my '32 and it solved the problem
Toe in toe out ...... I remember an old TV series in which someone said ' If your not confused now you will be ' My next problem is the car sometimes jumps out of gear when you take your foot of the gas . I dare not ask . Being a total novice at this I thank you all for sharing your experience .
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