Setting Swivel Housing Tension

**CapeLandy** · 15th April 2009, 02:15 PM

Many years ago I developed an uncontrolable wobble in the steering at about 30 to 50 km/h. I resolved it at the time by removing some shims from the top swivel pins on either side to make it a little stiffer to turn.
Last week after I drove through a slight pot hole the same happened.
My question - should I be checking the shimming again - does the flat disc at the bottom of the bush wear thin and need this re-shimming or must I check out the steering damper.
Any advise apretiated.
James

**Blknight.aus** · 15th April 2009, 05:02 PM

check the wheel balance then remove the steering damper if that makes it worse then your steering damper is more than likely ok and you need to redo the swivel preload.

if you've already done it once then it might be time to look into the bearing and bushes of the swivs.

**Lotz-A-Landies** · 15th April 2009, 06:23 PM

James

The Railco bushes have quite poor lubrication and so the disc in the bottom of the bush wears rather rapidly, particularly when you have free-wheeling hubs.

There are a number of fixes:

drill a grease-way in the top Railco pin (either an inverted "T" drilling or sloped so that it misses the hole in the base of the bush) and fit a grease nipple, grease regularly.
Have a small flat machined on one face to allow oil to run down to the bush.

Engage the F/W hubs regularly and run for 50 - 100 Km engaged to splash the oil up to the top of the swivel.

When you remove shims, you should always remove shims so the pre-load is correct (by feel is O.K.) but importantly from top and bottom checking that the seal is centred on the chrome ball. Add and remove shims to adjust to centre.

**CapeLandy** · 15th April 2009, 07:56 PM

Thanks Guys.

I checked the preload by feel and it turns with some resistance but difficult to judge related to the 4kg as per the manuals scale method. For this I need to loosen off the seal first to get a better feel.
When you say remove shims and put them at the bottom, would this not affect the position and play in the taper bearing below?
When I removed the top pin it still has a very good fit in the bush but it was too dark for me to inspect the thrust washer. The lower bearing also still felt fine with no amount of play when I shook the swivel before top pin removal.
I do have the freewheeling hubs which I admit I don't engage on road driving very often - so I will definately do the grease nipple conversion.
James

**Lotz-A-Landies** · 15th April 2009, 08:43 PM

James

You should check the pre-load with the seal out.

On the early hubs the rule was the put the same thickness of shims top and bottom, however there seems to be a change in the housing in some later vehicles that use none or minimal shims in the bottom.

once you have your pre-load correct and the hub in the straight ahead position, offer up the seal to the ball. It should be touching the ball surface and with slight but even pressure all round* the outer ring should sit flat in the machined recess.

Sometimes you will find the seal sits in the bottom recess easily but you need a lot or pressure to have it sit in the top of the recess at the same time. In this case you need to move some shims from the bottom to the top. If the seal sits in at the top but not the bottom, take some shims from the top and place them in the bottom.

You can also check your shimming by painting some engineers blue on the ball and see if the seal removes it evenly.

Before you do the final fitting of the seal, fill the machined recess with silicone gasket and the same on the seal face of the retaining plate. This should prevent any oil bypassing the seal which is a cause of a significant number of swivel leaks.

Hope this helps.

Diana

* If you don't require slight pressure to seat the seal, it is worn out and needs replacing.

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