Steering wobbles

[dcwicks]

Hi all I bet this has been discussed so many times.
What can be causing steering wheel wobbles.
Seems to be doing it more in a straight line and less or nil in cornering.
I have replaced the bushes in the front end

[Makka]

there was a discussion on here about taking the slack out of the steering box you just have to be careful not to go to tight or you could cause the steering box to wear prematurly

[mudski]

For me it was the wheel bearings. I personally wouldn't touch teh steering box. If theres any play what so ever in the bearings, nip it up.

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[tuckertrucker]

Two things to check firstly: are your wheel balanced??? If a front wheel is out it will start the wobbles and usually will go away in turns. But is usually present at particular speeds, and doesn't come and go.

Next, and certainly worth looking into is the steering damper. Bigger wheels/ tyres, with heavier loads on them, ie bigger trucks tend to get a dangerous bit of wobble in them. Thats why all bigger vehicles tend to have steering dampers. The job of a steering damper is to dampen out the rough bumps and wobbles of the bigger trucks. How I know? I just had this problem myself.

My GQ was wobbling the shit out of itself, especially at speed, and during a turn it would go away as the steering came under load. I had recently got hung up on rocks and boulders completely crushing the damper. I note there is heaps of oil leaking from it. I removed it completely and the problem got much worse with no dampening, I've had a new one put in and now the problem is gone completely.

Thats my two cents worth, but in my opinion, they are the easiest and cheapest things to check anyway and can easily cause the wobbles in the steering wheel youre being troubled by.

[General]

Balance tyres, check all rubbers in your arms.

[digitdowns@gmail.com]

I run original 16" factory split rims do these cause more wobble

[BigRAWesty]

A steering damper is a bandaid fix..
And without assessing the underlying problem will wear out things much quicker..

Unfortunately there are a number of things that can cause the dreaded nissan death wobbles..

As above mentioned wheel bearings and possibly steering box..
But I'd check bearings first and box last..
In between you have rod ends on both drag rod and tie rod.
Bushes on panhard rod and radius arms..
King pin bearings.

And..
It could also be worn bushes in the backend.. note as often but has been noted, mainly rear panhard rod..
Imo if you do the bushes in the panhard rod do both of them.

[threedogs]

Balance and rotate your tyres first, then take it from there,
Easy enough to check your wheel bearings

[mudski]

Balance and rotate your tyres first, then take it from there,
Easy enough to check your wheel bearings

Yep. Grab the workshop manual and a torque wrench and tighten to spec. Then reassess. Also if your taking the wheel and hub off, check where the inner wheel bearing seats up against the seal runner section. Both my hubs were worn there. The inner wheel bearing had worn a grove not even a 1mm thick. But my wheel bearings would always need tightening. I replaced both hubs with new ones and no more issues.

[Bigcol]

start at the obvious
check your front wheel bearings
also, check the tyre tread wear patterns
take tyres and get them all balanced - then put the rear ones on the front and vise a versa
if you still have the wobbles

now its time to take it to a suspension place (you dont have to buy anything) just get them to look at and quote to replace all the front end rubbers (after the initial heart attack from the price,) it will tell you which ones are bad and need doing ASAP

you can do them yourself with a small amount of mechanical aptitude - always fit the OEM rubbers - I tried the slick neoprene replacements - and had to do it all again 18 months later as they were roo ted