Puma driving me crazy

[Mustlust]

I have an ongoing g drama with wobble steering around the 80 km mark.
i have replaced everything, I.e., bearings, bushes, tyres…….
the preload was fine for a few weeks but now it’s light again. I have new bearings top and bottom, and new pins. The only way that I could get a reasonable preload on this car was to remove ALL the shims on both sides, but this no longer seems to assert enough pressure to effect preload anywhere near required.
can anyone suggest a remedy to solve the preload deficiency?

[p38arover]

Have you checked steering toe-out, not toe-in?

From RAVE:



Toe-out measurement ................. 0 to 2 mm toe out
Toe-out included angle ................ 0 to 020’

[V8Ian]

Don't discount drive shaft wear or out of balance.

[DazzaTD5]

a failed or faulty (worn out) steering damper.

after that, you said "bushes" do you mean locating diff arm bushes? which can be more prone to wear or rather the wear becomes more noticeable with bigger than std tyres, as in 285 etc etc.

Also how many km's has your Defender done?
I wouldnt expect all the bearings and related parts you have changed to be worn out of reasonable spec unless its done either hard offroad km's or is pushing 300K or more.

[MLD]

if not already replaced, panhard bushes can induce a wobble around that speed.

[Mustlust]

Thanks for the replies.
What I’m saying, is that there is nothing left to reduce as I’m down to zero shims when measuring the preload. I’m wondering now if the crap pins that came with the new top ball bearings are slightly smaller in diameter than the originals. I’ll have to see if I kept the originals. I may have turfed them as they were cut up by the collapsed bearing race. Wouldn’t be the first time that after market parts are not to original spec.

[roverrescue]

I’ve been down to zero shims on a few disco1/realdefenders
And it has taught me one thing

The shimmies at 80kmh is almost never one silver bullet

Shagged rear arm bushes
Pamhars that seems good but isn’t
Rear a-frame
Steering damper bushes

Point being - if your down to zeros on the swivel pre-load

Time to start looking elsewhere


S