[aleks001]

So i have this slight steering vibration, definetly not the death wobbles and I'm really trying to go down the route of not throwing money at it. Let me describe my symptoms and maybe someone can point me in the right direction. I have done the following, all of which have not helped (I've done this stuff because it was due and worn out, not chasing the wobble).
1. Shocks front and rear
2. Steering dampner
3. Track rod
4. Adjustable drag link
5. Wheel alignment
6. All new tyres/balances
7. Tightened wheel bearings (still looking if I did this correctly, whats the factory manual procedure) ?

I have not as yet had a proper inspection of any bushes, just haven't had the time to take a look, but would be supprised as the vehicles is only at 166,000KMs to be a bushing issue (2005 nissan patrol)

My steering wheel vibration is light and would not describe it as violent or what people refer to as the death wobbles. It usually happens around 85-95KPH. However it is intermittent, it does not always happen. It seems to happen more when the road is turning slightly left at speed and if put the wheel back to center quickly it stops, taking fast right turns seems to shake less, different road surfaces also affect it, usually smooth roads being worse, go figure. What I find interesting is that I get it the worst when I haven't driven the car for a couple of days, no idea why this makes it worse, but definetly it seems like there is more of a chance of happening if the vehicle has been sitting.

Wheel alignment was done by fulcrum so I trust there setup and front toe was set to 0.6 for front left and right.

The steering does feel very loose and I saw some suggestions about tightening the steering wheel box, any instructions on how to do this ?

Any other advice I would appreciate, I'm not going to tackle this problem by randomly throwing parts at it, not at this stage anyway.

Cheers,
Aleks

 

[aleks001]

What was caster? Download the manual via the link in my signature for full detail of bearing and pin adjustment.

I'll upload the cster when i get home.

I downloaded your manual a while ago i tried looking for the wheek bearing part but couldnt find the section, where is it located ?

 

[aleks001]

It is in there, just need to go through and check each section, take notes of each heading to make it easoer next time your looking for a section.

Will have more of a look throught the books.

Caster left 3.94
Caster Right 3.61

Can caster even be adjusted, I thought you could only do toe ?

Cheers

 

[aleks001]

Caster looks OK, from those numbers I can only assume you don't have a lift? No caster cannot be simply adjusted, offset bushes can be fited to give more caster or things like drop boxes or special arms, the last 2 being the most expensive options. But as said yours looks OK.

Thanks for confirming, no not lifted, I assumed it would be fine as my vehicle is stock and you can't adjust it. I just feel like its something to do with the steering, because the vibration is only in the steering wheel, it's not felt anywhere else in the body.

 

[aleks001]

Check steering connections to box and pitman arm. Also panhard bushes can feel fine until loaded.

Will do. What's the best way to check the panhard bushes ?

I tried wobbling the steering left and right quickly while stationary and it feels very loose and there is a sligh clunk, not sure if it's normal. I've never had a 4x4 before so it's hard for me to say how much loosness in a steering wheel is normal as all my other cars have been tight steering sport cars.

 

[aleks001]

Lets check top part of steering first. With engine off how much freeplay is in the steering without wheels moving?

Ill get under and check when i have a chance. Definetly more play to the left. Hardly any play to the right which seems odd.

 

[aleks001]

I've been under the car quickly today and this is what I found. The front radius arm bushes seem to have cracked around the bolt part:

So where I have marked it red you can definetly see it seperating and cracking all around there, but testing with a pry bar they still feel pretty tight.

The panhard arm bushes look ok to although i think its hard to diagnose them without taking the arm off, but they do feel tight.

The steering wheel freeplay is about 60mm so way above the manual stated 35mm or less (Thank you geeyoutoo for the manual). So I'll start with adjusting the steering wheel freeplay as that's free and see how we go from there. The steering has always felt a little too loose to me as in it kind of feels dangerous at high speeds so adjusting the steering box may fix several issues for me. Will advise if the steering box adjustment fixes my issue which is intermittent wheel shimney around 90kph.

 

[aleks001]

Cool, I would replace those bushes, only do one thing at a time otherwise you won't know what fixed it. my old DI has around 25mm freeplay from centre so yours is right up there.

I will get to them when the workshop is sorted, in the process of being built, don't have a press yet as well.

I measured total free play not just from centre. It's probably more like 40mm to left and 20mm to the right from center. I moved the wheel to the left until it starts to move the wheel and then measured all the way to the right until again it starts to the move the wheels.

 

[aleks001]

I adjusted my steering box definetly much tigheter now, play is now between 20-25mm. I turned the adjustment screw just a little and it wouldnt budge anymore, so I'm not sure if it will get loose over time again and you can adjust it or if this might be the vehicles final adjustment and next time will need a new steering box.

I took the car for a quick drive, couldn't really notice a lot of difference, very little shimmy around 70KPH but my issue is intermittent. Vehicle is definetly better to drive with the tigheter steering. Will update when I've had it for a couple of drives if its fixed/reduced the shimmy.

 

[aleks001]

The steering adjustment has made a huge improvement almost no wheel wobble at all anymore, randomly it pops in now and then very slightly, but I think that's just the road, probably quite normal. I think what it really shows is that any loosness in this vehicle can cause wheel wobbles. I'm going to go under the car and torque every single bolt, I'm sure some have come loose over time as well. It's probably why the wheel wobble is so hard to fix as there are million possibilities for it. I highly recommend to everyone though to check their steering for freeplay, regardless of wobbles, it's made a huge difference to the car in terms of driving it, just feels so much stabler and safer to drive. It's a very easy part to adjust you dont need to remove anything. Just the cover behind your right fron wheel, the adjustment bolt can be accessed from the engine bay, it's right next to the water bottle.

 

[aleks001]

Looks like it was all a dream. Wobbles are definetly still there they havent improved at all with the steering box adjustment.
Back to square 1, this is going to drive me crazy like im sure it has many others haha

 

[aleks001]

It will be one of the things mentioned in this thread, you just need to eliminate them one at a time.

yep, i will go through it all slowly and check everything. I really appreciate this thread and the help from the forum.

 

[aleks001]

Start with your panhard bushes.

I will replace them if i run out of ideas, because they feel tight, although i need to take the arm off to have a proper look.

 

[aleks001]

I re-adjust the wheel bearing as properly as I could following the manual and the wobble dissapeared for a whole day, only popped its head up slightly on a downhill run yesterday, but I tried for a good 30 minutes to reproduce it and I couldn't (I was getting the wobble at 90kph constantly at this point). This wobble is obviously caused by some sort of play in the front axle and it really only needs a tiny bit to be felt. I had a quick look at my top king pin bearings and they looked ok, but one definetly doesn't look that good it looks a bit dark and burnt in some places, I'm guessing that's not good. As removing the bottom king pins requires pretty much an axle rebuild level of removing stuff, I'll probably just rebuild the whole front axle, you can get the whole kit for $250 so might as well. Even the wheel bearings had some very minor wear but my guess is all this can add to looseness so this is where I will be heading next, but I'm not working on the car for a while till I get my hoist