TD5 Steering Death wobble

[BilboBoggles]

Hi All,

My TD5 with 200kk+ on it has been doing a death wobble for quite a while when making a sweeping Right turn at speed and if it hits a bump. The steering starts shaking until I slow down a little.

I've had new shocks, steering damper - tie rods - steering rods etc done, it's had the tyres (BFG Mud Terrain in std size) rotated and balanced. The steering swivel preload "appears" reasonable ie it does not "flop" easily.

So are there any other causes for a death wobble? I've lived with it for a few years now - but it's driving me crazy now.

[JDNSW]

The most common cause is swivel preload. If this has not been actually checked, I would do this first. You need to ensure that the load is even across the entire range of movement - particularly if the wobble has been there for a long time, it is possible that the rollers have worn grooves in the races so that the preload is a lot less when the rollers are in the grooves, but more when out of the grooves, enough to stop it flopping. Note that the actual wheel movement during the wobble may be very small, just in the width of the grooves.

There may be other contributors to the problem, that you have not mentioned - free play or softness in any of the front suspension bushes, loose steering box, loose wheel bearings, suspension lift, probably other things I can't think of at the moment.

John

[87County]

One would guess that with a new damper the reason could be swivel pre-load (which you state is OK).

Therefore I would question if the damper is OK (even if it is new). IMHE the damper itself, to be effective, should be (if removed from the vehicle) quite difficult to compress/extend by hand.

I had to return a new one for replacement some time ago.

[87County]

duplicate post

[rick130]

A loose bolt or buggered bushes in the Panhard rod can do this too.

I realise you mentioned new shockies, just double check the bushes and that the nuts are done up sufficiently.
A dead damper or loose/buggered bushes can give exactly the same symptom.

[goingbush]

other problem, if you have had a "wheel alignment" done, they have set toe-in instead of toe-out , a dead set cause of wobbles.

most tyre places set them to toe in which is just wrong. they should be zero to 1mm toe out. (or negative toe in)

[BilboBoggles]

Thanks for those replies - It may well be one of the shockers is not happy - They were new genuine, so nothing special. But it does feel a little wallowy.


Could also be those bearings too - I'll get those checked. I fear I'll be up for a complete rebuild though, as I can see the swivel ball itself is quite deeply scored, and I know the CV joints were quite worn 40,000 k's ago when they were side swapped to get a bit more out of them....


Well there goes another couple of thousand. (Because I'll probably want to upgrade to better CV's and maybe half shafts etc. etc. etc.)

[Summiitt]

Had the wobbles on my 130 td5, couldn't find a cause, until we changed the tyres for new BFg mud terrains, wobble fixed!prior to this We had wheel alignments, and balance, Tyres were at about 30% so I never considered they were the issue, but that's what it was.

[camel_landy]

First I'd check the pre-load...

...Then the panhard rod. (In fact, if you haven't changed those bushes for a while, you might as well just get them done!)

The only component not mentioned are those pesky swivel bearings.

M

[rick130]

I had a death wobble under brakes once in my old F100.
It only happened periodically, but when it did it was so violent it'd almost pitch you out the drivers window.

Tyres balanced and rebalanced, king pins checked and ok, dampers checked, etc etc.

In the finish it was a tyre balance problem, even though they'd been re-balanced multiple times.
Once they were balanced properly, it never came back, and just a FWIW they were 31-10.5/R15 Bridgestone Desert Duellers, just to take everyone back in time :D