DW,
Us B GT not guys, think that you had better have a quick chat with your
steering column & front suspension. One or both are doing unnatural acts.
Your steering column should be firm & there should be NO road vibrations
beyond the normal rough road bump types making the wheel dance.
Without looking at the manual or going out & looking at the car, let me make
a suggestion or two ...
1.Look very closely at your upper steering column attachment points. I can
not help but think that they are not.
2. Get the front of the car on a good set of jackstands, give it a good push
to make sure things are stable & do the following:
A. Spin each of the front wheels & look at the edge of the rim. You are
looking to see if any of the wheels are out of true & yes this can also
happen to steel rim wheels. If it is fix or replace.
B. Look at the wear patterns on your tyres. If there is anything that even
wear, assume you are either out of alignment or have worn suspension probs.
A worn tyre may have gotten severly out of balance over time & cause vibrations
Look for signs of a balancing weight having come off. These are all signs that
you may want to get your front tyres rebalanced.
C. Grasp your tyre firmly & give it a good shake in both vertical and horizontal
directions. You are checking for warn parts and lose wheel bearings (The only
lose ones I have ever found were the fault of the last mechanic(?) to work on
them and not the fault of wear).
D. get a good light & get under the front of the car. Look at the rubber
bushings. If they aren't or if they look badly chewed up, its time to
order new ones.
Also, find the lube points for the lower wishbone. This often isn't done
resulting in severe metal to metal wear. I do not recall the exact parts
involved but we had a mail list safety alert on this about a year or two
ago. A few people looked and found the same problem on thier MGs.
All the abouve, while not exhaustive by any means, should get you looking
in the right places for warn, brokenparts or missing bolts.
OR
Find out why the upper steering column mount is lose or missing yourself (that
should be relativly easy), then take the car to a wheel balancing place.
They usuall provide free safety inspections & provide you with a very
complete list for problems (this is the no grease stain method of trouble
shooting). At that point you can decide to fix it yourself or have them do
it. Ether way, I suggest that you purchase the parts youself through TRF
or similar company. You will probably get better parts that they can.
If you need to replace bushings, it might be a good time to consider
MGBGT V8 bushings.
Oh, for laughs, you might just check the fixings for the rack & pinion.
I would definitly consider you car to be unsafe at any speed until you
get it diagnosed & know for sure what the problems are(I suspect at least 2
problems). I would place troubleshooting on the urgent list.
Good luck & let us know what you find,
TeriAnn
"Life's too short not to drive a roadster"
Still looking to trade an MGBGT for a TR4 or 250
|