steering problem Maybe Damper??

[kitacooch]

Gday, was coming home from cruiser mountan park and as i came over a bridge i hit a bit of a bump that sent my steers into an out of control wobble, shaking the whole car aggresively, scary stuff at 100km h with a caravan on the back. I had to slow to about 30km before it disipated back to normal, it happened again a couple more times and was a bump that set it off each time. I am running battle scared 35" cooper ST's and a tuffdog return to centre damper, tyres were ballanced recently and i don't think i lost any weights but really not completely sure.
Do you think it would be the damper? How do you check a return to centre damper to identify if it is stuffed??
cheers

[stikman]

Dont think i saw you at Cruiser, did you see the group of 8 landies cruising around?

Sorry on to your problem, not that i am an expert by any means. I would start with a wheel shake, jack each front corner and shake/rock the wheel with your hands top and bottom rocking the wheel to and away from you. Any noticable movement may indicate wheel bearing or swivel adjustment. From memory if the shake goes away with someone pressing th brake then it is the swivel. Also check the tie rod ends and maybe steering alignment. Not sure about the RTC steering damper but a normal one should just be smooth through its full stroke, i would say it is the same with the RTC but would have resistance from the spring each way from middle. Hopefully that was somewhat helpfull

[luv4bee'n]

Duno if this will help, I had a very similar problem while towing a large caravan, IN A GQ. Hit a small bump, uncontrolable wobble at 110k's had to hit the hazards hope for a shoulder the f3 sydney to newcastle can get very busy. The only way to stop this was to come to nearly a complete stop say bout 10k's.
New panhard bush's n it was back to normal

[RRV839]

Most likely casue is panhard bushes, i've have done many on various 4WD's to overcome this very problem, if you check for play in your wheel bearings/swivels - if you get someone to put their foot on the brake for you and it goes away it is wheel bearings, if not its swivel hubs. So do your panhard bushes - is your steering box leaking by any chance? casue it will elak onto the bush and ruin it (if its is rubber)
Any in my opinion the RTC dampners with the spring are rubbish better of just getting a good quality one like a bilstein. Had one on my car for a while and it drove like crap with it even after fiddling with the adjustments. and i have driven lots of others with them and don't like them

[kitacooch]

cheers for that guys, with a week of rain at my door step i may have an opportunity to check some of your points out. I fitted a ford power steering pump and have had some leakage out of the reservoir, especially in mountain goat country, so am thinking may have stuffed the panhard rod bushes. But today i pulled it out for a run and noticed a little clunk as i hit the brakes reversing out, so will be checking the wheel bearings and the swivel pin housings aswell.

cheers

[luv4bee'n]

I WOULDN'T DRIVE ANYWHERE WITH THE PANHARD OUT
my 2 cents if I've read it correctly

[HSV Rangie]

cheers for that guys, with a week of rain at my door step i may have an opportunity to check some of your points out. I fitted a ford power steering pump and have had some leakage out of the reservoir, especially in mountain goat country, so am thinking may have stuffed the panhard rod bushes. But today i pulled it out for a run and noticed a little clunk as i hit the brakes reversing out, so will be checking the wheel bearings and the swivel pin housings aswell.

cheers

I take you are not driving it with the pan hard rod removed.

If you do then the clunk is the axle housing moving side ways.

shaking steering.

swivel housing preload incorrect.
pan hard.
castor.

M

[kitacooch]

cheers for that guys, with a week of rain at my door step i may have an opportunity to check some of your points out. I fitted a ford power steering pump and have had some leakage out of the reservoir, especially in mountain goat country, so am thinking may have stuffed the panhard rod bushes. But today i pulled it out for a run and noticed a little clunk as i hit the brakes reversing out, so will be checking the wheel bearings and the swivel pin housings aswell.

cheers

I take you are not driving it with the pan hard rod removed.

If you do then the clunk is the axle housing moving side ways.

shaking steering.

swivel housing preload incorrect.
pan hard.
castor.
M

No havn't removed anything, hopeing for a look this weekend.
Just for the record, with the return to centre damper i have, i found that when the front wheels whent crazy i was hanging onto the steering wheel pretty damn tight and so the steering wheel wasn't actually moving but the wheels were and the movement was being made through the damper, very, very scary stuff as you feel you have no controll. And as a double wammy to have it set the caravan off into a wobble aswell just added to senareo. Just makes one think how easily an accident can happen.

[HSV Rangie]

return to centre damper is not a fix it masks the issue slightly.

Make sure all bushes are good.
make sure steering geometry is correct. (castor, toe in)
make sure swivel housing is set to correct preload critical.

fit a top quality damper bilstien or koni.

all will be good.

Michael.

[Rangie ute on 38'']

had the exact problem coming from cruiser, after fitting new suspension with good flex tried all the wheel balancing alignments ect, turns out it was control arm bushes causing the diff to shutter, u cant even control the steering wheel same thing slow right down to 30 all the way to brissy ,problem solved with new bushes until the next week end went off road again and drove home with same problem. do not use polyuthne bush because they cant stand the flex ive learnt no matter how well they sell them to u at arb

[Rangie ute on 38'']

the third time was a bent drag link causing huge toe in

[RRV839]

Steering dampners are just that, a dampner, i have driven without them on the highway and although a bit twitchy it still steers fine and yes i only have a 2in lift, however, if your wheels are shaking and the steering wheel isnt moving there is some seriously loose shit under you truck!

[kitacooch]

Hi again, its not that the steering wheel didn't move, but that i could hold it but fell the steers out of cotrol. I didn't get time to work on it this weekend but i did take a look under there and found that all seems OK, all is tight and firm so going to need a closer look and some trouble shooting.

[kitacooch]

Oaky Doakey, under advice i shoock the front end side to side, well that makes a difference doesn't it, panhard bushes capoocked so will be replacing them, but also notice slight movement in the radius arm bushes where attaches to the diff, should i replace them also?? was thinking may as well do the rear or the front radius arms while i was at it, should i throw in some caster correction bushes??
Is there anything else i should do while i am at it??

[stikman]

Good news that you are starting to track it down

With a 2inch lift your castor should not be too bad, so unless your steering is a little off (vague in start of turn then twitchy) i would not bother. I have not had any personal experience with the correction bushes though, as i went slotted swivels when i went 4inch. If you are pulling the arms off you may aswell put all new bushes in. If the chassis end bushes appear OK when you remove them chuck them in your toolbox as spares.

[kitacooch]

ripped the panhard rod out and as suspected the bushes were flogged, not sure what to do with the radius arms, they seem OK but how do you tell if they are flogged without removing them, i am refering to the bushes on the diff end, there is little movement side to side with the panhard rod out but seems normal to me.

[Philip A]

You can check the leading arm bushes visually by getting a big screwdriver and levering them to one side.
Then you look up to the centre sleeve and see if it is still bonded to the rubber.
Regards Philip A

[kitacooch]

Ok not the panhard bushes as problem still there, not anywhere near as pronounced but still there at 60-80, all other bushes look fine, took the damper off, quite easy to push in but lots harder to pull out, so guessing it is stuffed and to helping things. Will take down to tyre shop and have both fronts re-ballanced and see if that helps, bloody frustrating as wanting to do weekend trip next weekend and running outa time.

[kitacooch]

can someone tell me how i could expect the vehicle to hande without a damper fitted.

While waithing for the new damper i took the vehicle down to the tyre shop with no damper fitted, didn't seem to make any differece to when the damper was on. Had the wheels re-ballanced from scratch and now drives better but there is still a pronounced wobble at 60-70 but doesn't go crazy like before and once over 70 all is good.

Am wondering if this is normal and will go once damper fitted or do i still have an underlying problem? Could it be that the tyres are too battle scarred to expect a propper ballance?
Any other ideas?

[armbrup]

If you still have a wobble, I would suspect swivel pin bearings.

If you have not replaced them in the last few years, do it and preload new ones correctly.

Also check the tie rod ends by having someone rock the steering wheel while you hold the top and bottom of each end. Any vertical movement is bad.
I had a problem with kickback when hitting a bump for years.FINALLY after replacing everything else I found that the RH top swivel bearing race had not been seated straight at the factory!!!

Also seeing you reckon the steering wheel was not moving, take the slop out of the box by slowly adjusting the nut on top until most of the slop is gone..
Regards Philip A