steering wheel shimmy

scottagnew101

Well-known member
Apr 24, 2007
940
0
36
Charlotte, NC
HA. do you remember which way ended up working best for you?

I put mine to where the shield of the OME was turned down as so It would not potentially hold water/mud/road grime. If I were to turn it the other way it would almost act as a cup. Does this sound right?
 

bakjar

Member
Apr 13, 2011
7
0
Colorado
I had that steering wobble going over bumps on the highway at 65. Tightened up my steering box preload. its in the rave. takes 2 minutes. tighten about a 1/4 turn at a time then test. No more wobble.
 

d1driver

Well-known member
Oct 19, 2005
3,153
1
Pittsburgh, PA
I had death wobble a couple weeks ago really bad. Brand new panhard rod bushings were shot. Bought a rovertracks HD rod with heim joints, no more death wobble.
 

OVERKILL

Well-known member
Oct 4, 2006
72
0
2003 D2...

I have the wobble...occurs while braking from highway speeds. The truck isn't wheeled very often and for the last year has been a snow day back up to my motorcycle.

I replaced in step by step order:
- new rotors and pads (it was time)
- the steering box (it was leaking anyways)
- the drag link (there was obvious slop on the joints)
- steering damper (bought when I put new shocks on)
- panhard or cross over rod (again the joints were not real tight)
- New tires (it was time, 55k on Toyo Open Country A/T was good enough)

I cannot wiggle the tire/hub up and down on either side, like the knuckle assembly was loose. Maybe I'm not using enough force

What else can I check? The ball joints at the knuckles? My guess is PT stocks those...
 
Last edited:

Jake1996D1

Well-known member
Mar 28, 2011
3,363
1
West Des Moines IA
OVERKILL said:
OK...I have the wobble...occurs while braking from highway speeds. The truck isn't wheeled very often and for the last year has been a snow day back up to my motorcycle.

I replaced in step by step order:
- new rotors and pads (it was time)
- the steering box (it was leaking anyways)
- the drag link (there was obvious slop on the joints)
- steering damper (bought when I put new shocks on)
- panhard or cross over rod (again the joints were not real tight)
- New tires (it was time, 55k on Toyo Open Country A/T was good enough)

I cannot wiggle the tire/hub up and down on either side, like the knuckle assembly was loose. Maybe I'm not using enough force

What else can I check? The ball joints at the knuckles? My guess is PT stocks those...

Search swivel preload
 

MCALKINS

Member
May 6, 2010
6
0
Salix, Ia
Have you tried removing any shims from your swivel pins? I had the same problem and removing a couple of shims really tightened up the steering. Problem is, when you remove the two bolts that hold the swivel pin you will lose a lot of oil from the swivel housing. I made the mistake of refilling with the 90 weight gear oil that the book calls for instead of "One Shot". This made my swivel seals leak even worse than before, so now I'm in the process if installing new swivel seals. (There is no drain plug at the bottom of the swivel housings. The fun never ends.) Be assured, I will use "One Shot" grease this time. If you do decide to remove some shims you will need to measure the resistance on the steering arm. Use a fisherman's scale. You need to adjust by removing shims until you have approx. 14-16# of resistance. Mine were at 3.5 and 6# before I removed shims. Good Luck.
By the way, somewhere here in the forum there is an excellent step-by-step on the whole procedure, with the exception of the "One Shot" .
 

OVERKILL

Well-known member
Oct 4, 2006
72
0
MCALKINS said:
OOPS. Sorry about that second swivel pin post. I thought my first reply didn't post.

No problem and thanks for the help. D2's don't have swivel pins though.
 

big buck

Active member
Mar 1, 2009
37
0
My did the same thing when i hit a bump doing over 50 mph front end parts looked good did not know what do do. Took it to a friends garage lifted it up drives front wheel had i little bit of play when i i pushed it in and out wheel bearings were the problem
 

p m

Administrator
Staff member
Apr 19, 2004
15,651
869
58
La Jolla, CA
www.3rj.org
Bug buck,

wheel bearings is not the only, and not the most-frequent, cause of wheel shimmy in these trucks. Besides, it looks like this particular issue was sorted out about two years ago.