The oddest sight today

I was following a maverick down a steep hill this afternoon, he was in the far right lane and I was in the middle lane. As we approached 80klm/hr I noticed his front wheels start to wobble and then they both reached what I can guess is some perfect out of balance condition and the whole front end was almost bouncing off the road. Poor guy was hanging on for dear life and this thing was wobbling and moving around about a mete. I put my hazard lights on as the traffic behind probably couldn't see what was going on. I thought the whole front end was about to fall out. Then, it simply stopped as he slowed a bit and he carried on, and when he reached 80 again it didn't happen on the flat. Any ideas? Guys looked pretty rattled, pass side wheel nuts looked fine. Tyres were some sort of no name brand, road tread, but rears were fine.

The same thing happened once in my old MQ, it bounced all over the road, and all I could do is hit the brakes and pull it up as gently and straight as I could..... checked and couldn't find anything .... it never happened again in that one or any subsequent Patrols, and I have travelled all over the place ....

I had just had the front hubs worked on and pulled apart, so put it down to the fact that the knuckles weren't sitting right after coming off the hoist, but when I checked it all it was fine.

Seems to be something that happens with the exact right conditions

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Originally Posted by happygu

The same thing happened once in my old MQ, it bounced all over the road, and all I could do is hit the brakes and pull it up as gently and straight as I could..... checked and couldn't find anything .... it never happened again in that one or any subsequent Patrols, and I have travelled all over the place ....

I had just had the front hubs worked on and pulled apart, so put it down to the fact that the knuckles weren't sitting right after coming off the hoist, but when I checked it all it was fine.

Seems to be something that happens with the exact right conditions

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Wow Mic! My mates old MQ used to do this all the time and this is exactly how he stopped it. My MK Shorty never did it though. We never found out what it was though.

Hmmm... it's interesting and worrying at the same time, 'cos it's intermittent in some case as above, yet haven't been able to find the real cause of the wobble. :(

Im thinking stuffed shocks, and just bouncing on the coils.
Saw a bike on the freeway do it once bouncing about 150mm
up and down @ 100kph lol

Had it happen to me once in our Nissan Civilian bus not long after I bought it. Was crossing a causeway somewhere on the south east coast (Bermagui?) & the road surface had slight undulations which caused a bouncing situation which quickly became out of control. It was crazy, we were only doing around 40 or 50kph, & suddenly we were bouncing so much that we were being thrown off our seats & our heads hitting the roof! My main concern was keeping in a straight line to avoid ending up in the drink. Real change of undies stuff! We did another 1500kms or so, with no further occurrence, but once home I checked the shocks - which were totally cactus. Could open & close the shocks with no resistance whatsoever. I believe the combination of no damping & the frequency of the mild undulations & our speed provided the conditions needed. Faster or slower & it may not have occurred. Was definitely a case of an accident waiting to happen, & all shocks were replaced before further use

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Originally Posted by Cuppa

Had it happen to me once in our Nissan Civilian bus not long after I bought it. Was crossing a causeway somewhere on the south east coast (Bermagui?) & the road surface had slight undulations which caused a bouncing situation which quickly became out of control. It was crazy, we were only doing around 40 or 50kph, & suddenly we were bouncing so much that we were being thrown off our seats & our heads hitting the roof! My main concern was keeping in a straight line to avoid ending up in the drink. Real change of undies stuff! We did another 1500kms or so, with no further occurrence, but once home I checked the shocks - which were totally cactus. Could open & close the shocks with no resistance whatsoever. I believe the combination of no damping & the frequency of the mild undulations & our speed provided the conditions needed. Faster or slower & it may not have occurred. Was definitely a case of an accident waiting to happen, & all shocks were replaced before further use

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Same thing(means "similar" in Melbourne :) ) happened to me but not probably as bad. Back in 2012 I was heading towards outback and somewhere between Adelaide and Coober Pedy I somewhat lost control of the vehicle when it went over(or rather under) a sudden shallow area on the seemingly flat road. It gave me a quite a fright, 'cos I was doing no less than 100km/h, and luckily for me, I had tiny 30" tyres, which would have helped a bit by keeping the centre of gravity tad lower. The vehicle swerved violently as it was about to roll over, and I pretty much had my whole life flashing in front of me for micro second. I regained control within a second, but learnt a good lesson. Being in a near fatal crash previously, I didn't wanna experience that anymore. :icon_bonk:
It's never happened with bigger wheels, but I suspect it will in a similar conditions. After that incident, I've never expected seemingly perfect outback main roads to be anywhere near perfect.

I'm surprised you havn't heard of it before, very common in GQ's

Type death wobbles gq patrol in google

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Originally Posted by NissanGQ4.2

I'm surprised you havn't heard of it before, very common in GQ's

Type death wobbles gq patrol in google

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Googling it, I found this video about GQ death wobbles and solutions to it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BtdFmyFv9s