Scary wobble in Discovery 1 steering

As indicated above, the steering damper is unlikely to be the primary fault. By far the most common problem is swivel preload - and your check will not have determined whether they are at fault or not. To do this, the track rod and drag link need to be disconnected and the resistance to movement checked. Only gross free play will have shown up with the check you made. The other likely candidate is the bushes on the ends of the panhard rod.

But you also have to be aware that there may not be a single fault - the wobble may result from the accumulation of several small problems - fixing one may stop it; until the others get a bit worse and the wobble returns.

John

Thanks John and Sparksdisco :-)

Just an update on the wobble issues that I was having: it appears to have been flogged out bushings on both the panhard rod and radius arms. Replaced with new ones and the wobble has vanished. I've uploaded some pics to show the condition of the bushings and two on one of the radius arms were particularly bad. I've also bought swivel hub overhaul kits from the UK and will be installing them over the next few days.

I'm having the same issue but starts at about 95kph and smooths out again at around 105 - most annoying !!!!!

Haven't had a good look at diagnosing it yet I reckon I'll get Dave to have a look at it for me some time.

This thread looks to be pretty well done, so just posting this for posterity incase it should help someone.

Several years ago, I was coming down the Toowoomba range at about 80 to 90 kph when the 1996 Disco HSE V8i started to vibrate and wobble violently through the steering and the attitude of the whole vehicle. A quick stop and inspection and everything seemed ok, so I limped into Gatton for a better look. Got in on a hoist and checked everything over.

It ended up being the wheel nuts. They'd come loose and were winding themselves off (I had the tyres rotated recently). It is a quick and easy thing to check.

I now check things like wheel nuts myself after having tyres fitted etc.

I have experienced this wheel wobble, it started at about 70Klm/hour and went away again at 80-85K's, checked out all the usual suspects as indicated here, it turned out to be low tyre pressures........... beats me but keeping the pressures up as recommended no further problems. And no I'm not dreamin'.

Had a similar thing...turned out to be a massive chunk of mud stuck in the wheel :p

Hi this is pav130 alias The Pav or Michael Pavlic i have been around landrovers most of my life and have seen this problem before check for tire wear. Stepping in the tread blocks this is usually caused by as you have said worn steering joints or bushes check the steering uni joints or loose spline in the steering shaft. A small vibration in the tires can make the steering wheel vibrate violently if the shaft has any play. The valve body in the steering box will bounce back and forward making the vibration worse. Any play in the steering shaft on the input side of the steering box multiplys through the hydrolics. Try fitting a different set of tires to see if this helps.

Just wondering if you fixed the issue?

I recently had the same problem and found that the bushes on the front shockies we're starting to breakdown, when I went to remove the shocks I could compress them and they would not rebound at all, so they were both replaced and now the steering is great no wobble at all. I found that it only had been shaking some times around 100kph.

I had a similar symptoms and its wasn't the steering damper, but shock absorbers. (I thought is was the damper too). Replaced all the shocks the wobble was gone.