shaking patrol

[jmandea]

G'day, I got a bad case of the "shakes" yesterday for the first time! (not me personally, the 05 GU!). She got a pretty good workout up at Landcruiser Mountain Park over Easter, came back in one piece (surprisingly) but yesterday I headed up the road and for the first time since Easter I hit 80 and every time we hit a mildly rough patch of road, we got a really good shake up; it was like she got into a bounce up and down (not side to side) and couldn't get out of it until I backed off slightly. Keeping it under 80 and it was fine.

Anyway, after heading home and having manoeuvered into a fishing spot which involved doing one u turn, I noticed a groaning noise and slight heaviness that wasn't there before.... at that point it was right hand down only. Anyway, I cruised home slowly under 80 and then commenced checking all the things i could think of, starting with making sure there was no mud left on her, tyre pressure even, wheel nuts nice and tight, no leaking from shockers, no other unusual leaks.

I grabbed hold of the wheel and rocked them back and forward, but no clunking noticed, mind you those big muddies are not easy to shove around and I'm sure the neighbors were wondering what the mad woman was up to man-handling her car... I bounced the car up and down by shoving on the bullbar and it had a bit of ongoing up and down movement afterwards, but not too bad.

I took it out for another run today, same problem. Moaning groaning noise worse now and on both locks. Slightly more heaviness in steering, but if you weren't observant you might miss it. All oils checked again and as they should be. Did some tight turns in the road; groan groan both ways, very unusual. Standing in driveway with car running, turned steering wheel hard lock both ways and groaning.

As I don't have the gear to put her up on stands, I'm pretty much at the limit of what I can think of to check and quite frankly, I'm doing my due diligence before getting her into the workshop tomorrow - I like to make sure I can accurately describe the symptoms and also make sure it isn't something simple that I CAN fix. I also like to have an idea of what it might be, what else to check, etc etc. So if anyone has any ideas? So far the only things I am wondering is that perhaps my OMEs (which are quite old and have done some serious travel, with corrugations from VIC to WA to SA to QLD to SA to VIC to.....well, you get it. ) are on the way out. Also maybe a power steering problem.

[happygu]

One of your wheels could have lost a weight in the mud, and if they are the later version rims, it is fairly easy to do.

Check for dried mud on the rims themselves - give them a good soak and blast with the hose to make sure that they are clean.

There is a couple of suggestions to start

[nickpeacock36]

You could also have got water in the swivel hub bearings. Pulled mine to pieces recently and the drivers side bearings were knackered. Changed them out and steering is much lighter. Its pretty easy to pull em out and have a butchers.

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[jmandea]

Good suggestions, I'll take a look and see if I can identify the mud. Unfortunately I'm not set up with the gear or experience to pull apart any components such as hub bearings; I can do the more basic things and maintenance, but without the gear, a workshop to leave it in pieces for a while, probably might leave that to the experts : )

I wonder about the weight, because we were hauling through mud a fair bit and of course there are some pretty gnarly steep climbs with slippery mud and shale and ledges, that probably take their toll too.

thanks for the replies!

[nickpeacock36]

You can even remove one of the bottom bolts to see if any water drips out.

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[trekster]

My 98 GU had the 80km/hr shakes, any other speed was fine though.

When I got new tyres I had a wheel alignment done as well, now no shaking. So maybe check your wheel balance and alignment.

Cheers.

[jmandea]

Update: had her in to the workshop this morning, after checking everything I could and suspecting a combination of shockers being the issue and an alignment issue, with my limited knowledge. Anyway, turns out that the shockers all need to be replaced and also the steering damper; all very slack so a nice shiny new set of OMEs for us! The other issue as it turns out, is that the alignment and balance are out of whack, which we no doubt did having a good hard play! So she will get an alignment, balance and the wheels will be rotated. I'm very glad that it seems we didn't do any 'real' damage and it is all just fair wear and tear in the end. Looking forward to how she handles with the new OMEs now!

[DX grunt]

My truck's had the 'shakes' for a bit and I thought I had it fixed. A bloke looked and shook the front wheels and said the wheel bearings are loose. This guy worked in the tyre game for about 30 years and reckons they probably haven't been done since they were new.

I said, can't be, I just had them replaced about 3 services ago. Sure enough, I checked the large mechanical franchisee's receipt, and it states: 'Remove and replace front wheel bearings $320.
That was 15 months ago.

Can somebody clarify whether it's normal or not after about 30k to re-do the wheel bearings - again? I'm not real happy at the moment.

Rossco

[lufkin]

We're they genuine bearings used?

[basil]

I think with the land cruisers the wheel bearings are re-packed every 40,000km. I think the patrol would be a similar interval. It will be stated in your service book how often to repack bearings. Its too cold to go out to the shed now and check my service book. I think you could push it out to 50,000km. Depends on if you drive through much water, conditions etc. Just because your wheel bearings are loose doesn't mean you have to repack them. You could just retension them for now. (So long as it all feels good when you tension them) Oh use the black nitrate gloves if you repack them, keeps your hands a lot cleaner) When the franchise repacked your bearings maybee they didn't quite tension them up enough and once the new grease settled in some movement appeared or maybee they didn't do them at all !!!