On Tue, 23 Jul 1996 BarneyMG@aol.com wrote:
> In a message dated 96-07-22 07:42:44 EDT, Greg Johnson wrote:
>
> << I'm trying to track down the source of a "shimmy" in my front end that
> occasionally occurs, at no particular speed. >>
>
> A pair of slightly crooked tires will do this. A crooked tire will cause a
> shimmy even if it is properly spin balanced. It will wobble or thump a bit
> because the tread is skewed or the tire is not perfectly round. One tire
> doing this a bit may not be noticible, but when two tires do it at the same
> time strange things start to happen.
>
snip
>
> BTW, bent wheels can cause the same type of wobble. Check the tires on the
> spin and let us know what you find so we can add it to the data base.
>
I have relatively new tires on the car (incl a new one from a flat last
summer), and "fake" minilights (minator?), which require a spacer on the
front or else they rub on the inside (but I am not sure where). The
spacer is (for now) just 4 washers on the studs. I haven't
checked the toe-in, but the tires have recently been balanced. I rotated
the tires when they were balanced , putting the newer tire up front.
After checking alignment, and checking the steering rack a little closer,
my only recourse is to borrow that wheels of a fellow BATANS member, and
see how thay run . I won't be pleased if my tires/rims are out of true
somehow. Any way to fix alloy wheels ? I have one extra.
On a related note, I think where the drive shaft connects to the rear
end, there in a looseness there. COuld that cause a problem? Note that
the shimmy comes and goes, not with specific speeds, but with changes in
the drive, like comming out of a slight turn, or easying up on gas at the
crest of a hill; it is actually quite unpredictable in it's severity:
sometimes it gets worse when accelerating.
The shimmy is translated as a side-to-side motion (I mean left and right
rotational motion) in the steering wheel. It doesn't "seem " to be speed
related, although it realy only happens at speeds above 60mph (but can be
relatively smooth at these speeds too, again, depending on the driving
conditions.
Hope someone can help.
Thanks-in-advance.
________ ___
/ ______/ | | Greg A.M.Johnson '72 & '66 MGB
/ \ ___ | | Biology Dept.
\ \_\ \ /\ __| | Dalhousie University
\______ / \________| Halifax, N.S., Canada
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