I looking for some input into the front tire shake problems on my T bucket.I had this car now for 12 years and I am running a set of Bug tires up front!! cant recall size, on a set of 15 by 4 inch rims. Now sence I got the car I found that under 55 the car worked perfect but after 55 I would get a small vibration in both tire causing the tires to hop. tried reblancing them but nothing changed. Now I found that the front tires were very sensitive to the different types of pavement. some times I could go 65 mph with no vibration but then hit a different strip of payment and I would have to lower my speed to 55.played around with tire pressures and all I found was with lower pressure the vibration got worse.I am thinking of swapping out the 4 inch wheels and the bug tires to a wider rim and a bigger front tire. I read somewhere that the bug tires are not designed for high speeds so im thing the tires is my problems.I did at one point swapped out my front rims but then I got a shake at only 30 mph.blamed that on the rims but thinking now the tires might have something to do with the problem.The front end is a 4 inch dropped tube axle with spring behind and is running a friction shock .I played around with the shock, even ran the car without it and still the car runs the same. any ideas on what I might be over looking or any ideas I can try to see if I can pin point the problem??
it almost sounds like inside seperation of the tire.. or the air preasure is to high.. Im just guessing..
You have a defective tire. Same thing happened to me. A new shock helped but after a hundred miles the shock softened up and was no better. changed tire [same wheel] and all was well.
This is interesting! too much?? but my understanding that too much will only make the car go straight? if what you are say is true the all those drag car with 10 or more would have tire shake?? I think mine is about 6 or 7 drgrees.Have to check that tho..
Caster is not a tire wearing angle,it would cause more of a pulling problem I would think,but a 10 year old tire flat spots? ply seperation? and still maybe the shock.
check tires for cupping, i just found a busted bat wing on my straight axle , couldn,t see it until i jacked front end up and than could see broken welds , bat wing was stainless which was tig welded purchased from speedway ...
out of round wheel can do it too. I had broken welds where the front crossmember atached to the frame and that made the same kind of tire motion you describe. And on some road it was perfect and on others it was almost undriveable. Seemed to me that new ashphalt was the worst, that didn't make sense. Frank
12 year old tires... I'd start there and get a set of no year old tires. Are they bias or radial. I'm in the bad tires camp on this one.
What tire pressure? I ran 25# on the front of the T, any more and they would superball right at 60 then you could drive through it. We took many cars at the old shop and the boss would drop the pressure and the bounce would go away.
Yes when i swapped out the front rims it was with a set of wheels that were out of round. dont know how that got past the wheel balance!! As for cracks in frame.mine is filled so anything like that I would see very easy.Im always checking the car for stress marks. Mine would ride better on new pavement..
I played around with tire pressure.. the lower the pressure the worse it got.. I run 28 up front anything under 26 would let the shake happen at a lower speed. at higher pressure there was very little differents.
Oh one more thing with tire pressure that I notice was if one tire was slack more then the other the tire shake on that wheel would be worse.. I starting to belive that it is the tires. I will swap out the front wheels and tires and try it and see if there is a differents. one problem with that is I have another month before I can take it out!! lol any more ideas of input would be great in the mean time.
Maybe resonance? I get it bad in my dd with winter tires. As soon as I change to summer tires it goes away. Change shocks to ones with a different damper rate?
Sorry but I had to do it just to make sense of what you were attempting to say. I had the same issues with my T bucket running 520 x 15 bug tires in the mid 70's. Looking back on it it was probably a combination of the wheels and hubs not being balanced on the car together, too much caster and some worn out lever shocks that looked cool but probably worked like crap. First if the tires are ten years old they need to be replaced. They can be breaking down inside from old age. I would however take the car to a shop that had an on the car spin balancer. the strobe style is best but an old Hunter with the hubs that hook the rim works fine in the right hands. Have them spin the wheels up without anything hooked to them first to see if the tire/wheel/hub assembly is out of balance. Over the years I did front end work and hunted down vibrations on a daily basis I found a lot of hub/drum assemblies that were out of balance and even a few hubcaps that were out of balance.
same thing going on in my a roadster. It is just the left side. have swapped tires ,wheels, and hubs .still the death wobble on the left tire, above 25/30 mph.
Sorry that would be a great idea but no such shop here with one of those balancers. as for the hubs setup it is mid 70s GM disk brake set up on a set of speedway 49-54 GM spindles. Lost of great info here..Im learning alot.. your a great help..thanks
Tried that no differents. it would happen only on one side if the tire pressure on that side is lower.
Generally more caster makes the car track straight easier. But too much can cause a shimmy or shake, sometimes called "death wobble" Kind of like the caster wheel on a shopping cart that gets bent up a little and then flops back and forth as it wheels down the isle. Of course this may or may not be the problem with your car, but it happend to me. So here is my experience with it: My '29 Duesenberg J, which has a straight axle and parrallel leafs in the front would roll down the road with no tire bounce or shake at all, but it had a tendency to move from side to side a lot when the road had significant wear grooves. Check it out in this vid, I bring it up to about 75, with no shake at all: http://youtu.be/B7XNCRC5wpk So then I entered the Duesenberg Drag race, and I wanted to make sure that it tracked true and straight on the airstrip, to be as safe as possible at speed. So the night before I left for the race, I took one pair of caster shims out, changing the caster from +4 to +8. Took the car for a quick spin on our local groovy worn out highway, and it went WAY straighter. I only got up to about 55 - 60, and then put the car in the trailer for the trip to the event. I got it out on the strip, and at 65 - 70, it sharted shaking really bad. Check it out in these vids, you can see it shaking so bad, I had to get off the gas at 3/4 track: http://youtu.be/H3UNH4Hs-n4 http://youtu.be/is7APtnD8-o So I checked everything over, and could not find anything wrong. I did a bunch of research, and found that too much caster can cause wheel shaking, especially on straight axle cars. My car also now has the sensitivity to the type of pavement, like you descibed in your car. Sometimes it will go 65-70 and not shake if the pavement is really smooth. But a little ripply pavement sets it off and it sharts shaking and won't stop till I slow it down. I still haven't re-adjusted the caster, but I'll be doing that in the next month or so, I'm sure it will solve the problem. If you find nothing else wrong, it's worth a try.
Hemi Joel first off sweet ride.. The sound of that engine is music to my ears.. I can see the the tire shake goes right through the car.. thats looks bad..Mine is no where that bad.. Mine is a open wheel car and I see it before I feel it..you got me thinking now on what my caster is on my car.. Thanks for all the info and videos are just too cool.
Do you know what the toe is though? Too much toe in can cause it too. There is also the school of toe out 1/8 will fix it. Search Death Wobble. When I drive my Duesenberg, a little over a 1/4" of toe in will cause a wicked shake. Sorry don't haver any current vids but I will get one tomorrow How sturdy is your tie rod? Rod ends all in tip top shape? Any slop? I used to be able to take my arms and pull and push the front tires togther and apart I could bow my tie rod until I stiffened it up.
It's time for new tires and have them spun balanced as a total assembly (mounted on car), I have had to add weight to T bucket axles to keep bounce under control, pull weights off to show, and install to drive.
a tire store will say after 3 years u are on your own. ten years you are asking for it ty rod ends steering gear worn are all the parts 10 years 100000 miles
Guys lots of great info and I will check them all.. My tie rods and steering rods are rod ends.I do check them alot.. No wear.. The toe in? well that is one thing I will measure. its nice to know all this stuff so when I replace the tires I will make sure everthing else is in order.
I'd try balance beads... i use then in my truck tractors when we can get to a balancing machine... worth a try.....
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