Joe,
Daffy failed her MOT on exactly this item a couple of weeks ago.
First thing to do is check that the front hub nut is adequately tightened.
Jack the front up, remove the wheel. Then remove the dust cover in the middle
of the hub. Easier said than done - the recommended technique is to use a
self-tapping screw in a hole in the middle - once the end of the screw hits
the end of the stub axle, further tightening of the screw should pull the
cover off. All that happened with me was the hole got bigger. Eventually I
made the hole big enough to get a thin screwdriver through it, and a
combination of levering and hammer taps got the bugger off. May be wise to
buy a new cover before you destroy the old one! One trick I have heard is to
weld (or glue?) a small nut inside the new cover, so a normal bolt can be used
to pull the cover off, and a shortened bolt used to blank the hole between
services.
Right, that done, remove the split pin holding the castellated nut in place
(it's good to have a new split pin to replace the old one with). Tighten up
the nut little by little until the wheel no longer spins freely, then back it
off until you can get the split pin through one of the holes across the thread
(there should be two holes, at right-angles to each other, so at most you back
off 1/2 a flat).
Put the wheel back on, do the nuts up tight, and try wobbling the wheel again
to see if the problem is fixed. If it is not, then it is probably a more
serious problem, such as worn wheel bearings or worn top ball joint. Getting
someone else to wobble the wheel while you inspect should lead you to the
cause.
BTW, this fixed Daffy's wheel wobble completely - then the MOT inspector didn't
even bother checking when I went back for the re-test last week! (which she
passed, I'm sure you'll all be glad to hear).
Richard & Daffy
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