Death wobble.....really low speeds

as in 5-10 mph.

The front wheels wobble back and forth fairly violently, and I have no control of it. Can't hold the wheel tight enough (and the model A tie rod end on my drag link absorbs some of it), and it doesn't stop obviously until I come to a complete stop.

It has mostly only happened right as I pull away from my garage....heading slightly uphill, over some very very light bumps in the road.

Otherwise it hasn't done it after I've been driving for a while.

Up until this morning thats the only place it happened...not far from my house, I pulled into the convenient store for some breakfast and pulling in there (again low speed) it did it again.

The caster is set properly...in fact the front axle is leaned back just a hair too much, but I would imagine that would make it even more stable (even if slightly harder to turn).

Is this just flat spots on the tires? I drove the car last night, just on a quick beer run, then put it inside....didn't see how warm the tires were when I parked it.

Ideas?

 

how are the spindle (kingpin) bushings. had the same problem due to improper lube. they can wear very fast..

 

One easy and free thing to try is switch the front wheels and tires side to side.
It won't fix it- but if the feel changes, you might have isolated it.

 

Kingpins,Tierod ends,Slop in the steering box?

 

Check everyting and if there is nothing out of spec put a So-Cal steering dampner on it and forget it. A few million VW's came from the factory with this setup so it's a proven cure. YOU'll get responces that say it's just covering up the real problem. Do you want to drive your car or spend a few weeks chasing your tail. Your choice.

Frank

 

How fast?

Everything on the car is pretty much brand spanking new.

Pretty sure the kingpin bushings are ok....the car did this the second time out, I doubt it's got 50 miles on it so far.

 

I had the exact same issue. Went through the entire front end multiple times, aligned, balanced tires, shaved tires, tried different toe settings, replaced the brand new kingpin bushings again, changed the tie rod and ends, triple checked everything and it still did it only at low speed and under certain conditions. Get a steering damper from an early VW or buy one from socal. I paid $10 for mine on ebay. Takes 15 minutes to install, is nearly invisible, solves the "oh shit!" wobble, and makes the vehicle handle and feel better too. You'll get the standard "If everything's set correctly you don't need one" and "that's a symptom of another problem" from the nitpickers, but I call horseshit. Socal puts one on every car that comes out of their shop. It works, plain and simple.

Edit: Fab32 beat me to it. I need to take a typing class!

 

I might give that a try.....but it did it when I had the steelies on the front last week...then I had the tires swapped back onto my wires, and put the wheel adapters on, and no changes so far.

 

How much caster is in the frontend? My old Anglia race car used to do this when I was slowing down and it was because of to much caster. It would sometimes do it after a burn out and go thru it twice when I was slowing down after a run. If I hit the gas, it would instantly stop.
Anyway, I had a coupld of guys that had dealt with the same problem tell me that if I took a couple of degrees caster out, it'd get rid of the shakes.
Just something to look at.
Larry T

 

Caster shake!

check your toe in, you need about an 1/8" of toe (narrower at the front than the back) maybe 3/16" if you have springy steering arms.

 

I had same problem at very low speed on hitting a pot hole - like you everything was new. Used a Socal damper (which can't even be seen without crawling around) - Cured the problem - never done it since. Don't care if it is a camouflage - I feel much happier driving my A since fitting it- and my happiness is all that matters!

 

As scientific as my eyes are, I'm not sure I have it that close. Haven't had time to get it to the alignment shop.

But, they are toed in slightly. Probably more like 1/4", but again I'm eyeballing it.

Sounds like I might be investing in a steering damper pretty soon!

 

Check this. A toed out condition with a little play anywhere will cause a crazy shimmy shake.

 

Here is an article telling how to check your toe at home. basically you make some really big callipers and check your front tires at the front and at the back.
http://www.veloandy.com/pics/alignment/how_to_align_your_car_at_home.htm

You may need to adust your tie rod a little bit. Try making it a little longer (adding more toe in) and give it a drive and see if that fixes it.

 

I know how to set it. It had a LOT more toe in before, I started out with it that way, afraid any toe out would make it scary to drive...enough that it really wore the tires driving it around Austin. I backed it out some, but it is certainly still toed in.

 

I feel your pain. I played with old JEEPs for most of my life and you haven't lived till you get a death wobble at about 35-40 MPH. I learned that a steering damper is cheap insurance against said death wobble. I also figured out that even a small increase in tire size combined with a dynamic out of balance condition was the usual cause.

 

We call it 'death wobble'! Toeing the front out is usually a quick fix. If that doesn't work, get a 'real' alignment.

 

We had the smae problem. Afetr checking the toe and making sure all was well with the king pins we added a steering dampner and a pan hard bar kit and poof the problem went away.

Good Luck

 

I would check the toe-in first.
I had the same problem with my T, 41 Ford front end and found out that I had too much toe-in. Ran it out to 1/8" and it is fine now.
Mine would do it around 20-30 miles and hour on the way up and also on the way down. If you it the brakes in that range it would really go crazy.
Robert

 

I had that too,
after changing front tires to some old bias plies.
The tires were real round inside to outside, not flat like the previous set.
After swapping a friends new set it stopped.

Are your tires new or old?
TP

 

Brand new. They're the Coker ribbed dirt tracks. I'm running right around 20lbs in them.

 

i had about 3000 miles on the car when discovered the death wobble at low speed. always on a right turn at the same corner going to work. someone on here mentioned spindle bolt bushings. i went out and checked them, yep tons of play, which in turn i would assume throws everything off..

 

I know it's not the case with The Fidgiter's car, but I've seen tires separating cause the same kind of sensation on cars and 18 wheelers. Sometimes the tread will be slipped over toward one side and sometimes a bulge grows out.
You can give a good start on toe set by doing this yourself.------Jack up the front of your car, spin the tires by hand, and put a stripe of white Krylon paint on the tread. Use a steady rest and scribe a line in the paint stripe. Use a measuring tape on that line to set toe. Our big truck alignment shop gets one step fancier, they use an adjustable "toe stick" made of 3/4" square tubing with sliding "arrows" at each end to guide in adjustment.
Run with the steering stabilizer advice. I bet Sachse has the part on the shelf.

 

I have bias ply 500/525 Firestones on 16" KH wheels on my '32 Roadster. Yesterday at the alignment shop they scribed a line in the center of both front tires. Reason is that the bias tires will run out so you can't set toe by measuring between the tread you must reference a center line on the tire. The shop told me that some bias tires will runout more than a half inch of thead wobble. I got a good set from Coker they only ranout 1/8". . My axel also had to be bent, had 1 1/2 degrees of positive camber now its at plus 1/4. My concern was scrubbing the outside tread on the tires and if I ever do go to radials the alignment is already set. So a trip to a good alignment shop should be step #1. The FOGGER

 

Exactly. And it takes about ten minutes (if that) to install. Did that to an M38-A1 back in the early '80s.

 

That's probably it then,
alot of guys don't like the driveability of those.
(some do though)
Also i've heard of alot of balancing problems and out of round problems from guys too,
so hopefully you've checked that.
(jack it up and spin'em to see if they are round if you haven't done it,
also if the same spot is always on the bottom they're wayyy off.)

On the RPU I had 6.00x16 LT's which are huge for the front that drove great for 5 years.
than they wore out so I threw some crusty 6.00x16s that were kinda roundy side to side,
thats when I experienced the low speed death wobble.
After spending a day checking and rechecking all the suspension,
tried another set of newish tires (15's though) and the problem was solved.

***
Also it takes a good hour of freeway driving sometimes to wear tires in,
like they wear in to a driveable pattern of that rim and setting.
they also don't like to be swapped to different rims or to different sides,
cause it'll magnify any wear pattern.

TP

 

steering dampner.$10.00

 

a steering dampner is good but it is a patch not a fix.
Your wobble will weaken the dampner in some time and the problem will come back.
Just like shock absorbers curing out of balance wheels, its just temporary.

If swapping tires/wheels solves the problem,
then you'll know that it isn't repairable and a dampner will be your only choice.
TP

 

how much caster are you running?

 

i had to put 30 lbs. in a customers car to get the wobble out of it. it was running the same tires.