Steering Shake.

[Robo]

Welllll ............... reading through all this, I had the same problem with mine some time ago. I always buy my tyres from the same tyre outlet and then have them rotated by my usual mechanic when I get a service. One time when he rotated them he also balanced them and after that I got the dreaded wobbles. I took the car back to the mechanic and he said the balance must be out and I stood there watching him for over an hour as he tried to balance the front wheels. His machine came up with all sorts of odd readings. He finally finished but when I took the car out on the highway the wobbles were back. I took the Patrol to my tyre place and they balanced the tyres in no time and the wobbles went away. I asked the tyre guy (a long time friend of mine) why this happened. He said a lot of mechanics and even some tyre places have balance machines that are fine for normal passenger tyres but are useless on wider and heavier 4WD and truck tyres. He told me his machine cost him many thousands of dollars and it is suitable for the larger 4WD and truck tyres.

Not saying your problem is the same - but I have mentioned this to other Patrol owners that I know and they have gone to a tyre dealer that specialises in truck and 4WD tyres and their problem has gone away as well. It's a cheap thing to try before you spend lots more money.

Yep that's why some go for the beads due to the fact local balancing machine cant do the job properly in the first place.

[Robo]

[QUOTE=peterbr1;642006]

Re read my post.... I said THE FIRST THING THAT SHOULD BE CHECKED IS CASTOR.

I have read this thread. I asked what the castor was set at... no reply, so it to me it hasnt been checked and documented

Again in my other post I said that there very small working tolerance.

How do you know it was correct in the first place? No use throwing castor correction in if you dont know what it was. How can it be corrected of you dont know what to correct? Do you think that the radius arm mounts both chassis and axle are 100% correct to exacting tolerances every time on the 100's of thousands of patrols ever built on a large scale production line? No way... patrols aren't that well built.

The fact is, that the wobbles are a direct byproduct of castor angle/king pinin inclination, a reduction in castor angle reduces the tyres contact patch with the ground, therefor reducing the stability of the steering system.

Thats why I stand by my "bandaid fix" comment as removing shims does not change the incination of the king pin.

While we are here. I too have the wobbles, I bought them home last week end from my trip to landcruiser park. It happens under breaking. Easy fix.
I have elongated the front bolt hole on the radius arm axle mount, every time I break, the front diff rotates forward, reducing my castor angle, thus reducing the size of tyre's contact patch with the ground and stability in my steering....Bam......wobbles. When i get some lathe time I'll turn some washers from a chunk of 4140 I have, set the castor close to 3 degrees and drive out without the wobbles. Its not the first time I have had the wobbles and it wont be the last

I'm not interested in watching a video on youtube on bandaid fixes. I would rather learn about suspension and steering engineering so I have an understanding as to why. But each to their own I guess.

wow you've solved it you should be rich what do you drive by the way?

Agree x10.
Removing a shim "can" tighten things up.
"BUT the bearing is worn unevenly" so it is only a bandaid at best.
If ya remove a bearing cap and then wipe the bearing cup surface clean, now take a look at it, you'll notice wear spots, this is where the rollers in the bearing sits while the steering is in straight ahead position, the marks are low spot on the cups surface.
This is where the play is, and removing shims only pushes the bearings into these low spots but the rest of the bearing is now over tight so hence a bandaid.
Over tight bearings will only damage themselves at an accelerated rate hence again bandaid.

The point that has also been touched on is mass production.
Not every chassie leaves the factory the same there will always be some degree of misalignment during assembly add to that years of wear n tear creates
different issues and more or less repair to fix it.
This is why I previously touched on get a print out of "check alignment machines readings for all angles etc" as trying to fix something with hit and miss is
is very frustrating.
Another reason I mentioned, 1 degree correction per inch of lift rule of thumb may not work, get and check alignment figures and go
from there.
Yes 1 " per inch of lift has worked for some, but as I said not every chassie is the same.
Get alignment figures first, before you spend your hard earned money, that being said yes you can fix the obviously worn panhard and trailing arm bushes etc first, but caster correction needs to be a known figure before you waste money setting the wrong angle if the book states you need x amount of angle, setting it near is only near, and not correct and will cause further issues ie tyres wearing uneven again! and the wobble will return.

As for the car pulling to the left, well Japan has much flatter rds than we do and chassie design and testing is done on those rds in Japan, add to that chassie miss alignment, wear n tear etc is the reason.
The idea of they are designed to pull to the left is just trying to explain why they are doing it and not taking into account the camber of our rds leaning to the left more than the oem design and test surfaces in the first place.

[the evil twin]

My beloved Ute started getting the wobbles about 6 months ago.
Has just under 500K of Ks on it
Can't remove the shims 'cause it doesn't have any.

Took the plates off and rotated them 180 degrees.

Wobbles gone... for now... prob be good for, meah, 50K give or take.

Next time the wobbles resurface I'll do the Bearings etc.