Steering Wheel Shaking from 90km onwards

[speedyvn]

Hi all,

Just got my VN Wheel aligned and balanced today as my car shakes at 90km's onwards and they told me that my tie rod ends are stuffed... had a closer inspection of them myself, the left one doesnt do much movement, the right one I can get abit of slop out of it so I've got new tie rod ends for both sides to put on tomorrow but a quick question as I know where most of the problem is..

Will a worn ball joint cause the steering wheel to shake?

I'm only asking this as I was picked up on this while getting my car roadworthied and got annoyed at how much they had given me to fix so I fixed half of what they said and took it to another mechanic where he only gave me 3 things (strutmounts, welding the seat nut back in including the cracks and for fun he made me put a exhaust rubber in.)

After that it was on the road but while doing the strutmounts I had a bit of a problem getting the ball joint off the left side so I borrowed the good ol ball joint splitter and as it normally does it busted the ball joint rubber while getting it off.. so I got that replaced but as I didnt have much trouble getting the other ball joint on the right side off I didnt bother but again this right ball joint is worn as the next door neighber gave it a shake and could get movement out of it..

So a recap... would my worn right ball joint cause a shake in the steering wheel?

also while driving home today as they counsel workers love resurfacing the roads every year I drove over a new layer of tarmac and the steering wheel started shaking.. just to clear that out.

also while wheel aligning my car I also got my wheels balanced just to be sure

thanks,

James

[KRUPTD]

A balljoint wont make you steering wheel shake.A worn balljoint will clunk whilst driving and would be noticable over bumps in the road and turing into driveways.
For your shake in the wheel,could be many reasons.Worn out steering rack,worn steering rack mount points/loose mount bolts,play in the rack ends or tie rod ends,bad balance with the tyres front or rear,buckled rim,wornout front suspension bushes,too low tyre pressure,loose wheel nuts,warped brake discs.Hope that helps

[speedyvn]

A balljoint wont make you steering wheel shake.A worn balljoint will clunk whilst driving and would be noticable over bumps in the road and turing into driveways.
For your shake in the wheel,could be many reasons.Worn out steering rack,worn steering rack mount points/loose mount bolts,play in the rack ends or tie rod ends,bad balance with the tyres front or rear,buckled rim,wornout front suspension bushes,too low tyre pressure,loose wheel nuts,warped brake discs.Hope that helps

Worn Out steering rack you can eliminate as a possibility as I had to replace it (got 1 of those ones where you get a reconditioned one and you hand in the old one) during roadworthy, wheels have been balanced today so you can eliminate that too... the suspension bushes I'm assuming you mean the strut mounts yeah? the ones that you can see under the bonnet in the middle of the towers? those where replaced with notholane strutmounts, warped brake disks aernt the case because I have recently replaced those with dba after the brakes WHERE warped and gave the usual shaky steering wheel while under braking, wouldnt think it would be the wheel nuts either.. the tyre pressures are up to scratch and the tyres are fairly new too.

Will check out the others that you mentioned though

[RVN 355]

A balljoint wont make you steering wheel shake.A worn balljoint will clunk whilst driving and would be noticable over bumps in the road and turing into driveways.
For your shake in the wheel,could be many reasons.Worn out steering rack,worn steering rack mount points/loose mount bolts,play in the rack ends or tie rod ends,bad balance with the tyres front or rear,buckled rim,wornout front suspension bushes,too low tyre pressure,loose wheel nuts,warped brake discs.Hope that helps

good post there most things are covered,also consider engine mounts.

[speedyvn]

good post there most things are covered,also consider engine mounts.

lol wouldnt the whole car shake if the engine mounts where loose? dont forget its only in the steering wheel the whole car doesnt shake.. welllll considering it has a misfire (nothing to do with spark its compression) it doesnt exactly shake

[MaN|aC]

and you can still go on about, scalloped/uneven tyre wear, there wheel balancer machine isnt accurate, incorrect balancing/counter balancing you name it

I work for a major tyre company, I recalibrate my wheel alignment machine every 3 weeks and the wheel balancer every month.
Next time ask a tyre store when they relcalibrate there equipment, you would be awfuly suprised lol

[speedyvn]

and you can still go on about, scalloped/uneven tyre wear, there wheel balancer machine isnt accurate, incorrect balancing/counter balancing you name it

I work for a major tyre store, I recalibrate my wheel alignent machine every 3 weeks and the wheel balancer every month.
Next time ask a tyre store when they relcalibrate there equipment, you would be awfuly suprised lol

lol well the wheel alignment today didnt do much as the steering still shakes but like I said I'll replace the tie rod ends tomorrow and see how that goes... hopefully it goes away but yeah I thought I should take it to a second guy to see what happens but thinking about it the local guy here is probably uptodate with he's machines anyway.. seeing that there isnt any improvement made in mine since I changed the rack and now... and also note those tie rod ends have been on my car ever since I've had it.

[RVN 355]

lol wouldnt the whole car shake if the engine mounts where loose? dont forget its only in the steering wheel the whole car doesnt shake.. welllll considering it has a misfire (nothing to do with spark its compression) it doesnt exactly shake

yeah maybe so,just try to eliminate all aspects.

[coolvxss]

My car shaked over 90km and it was just a dodge wheel balance so they re-did it and it was fine.

[YMY-88U]

had that problem with mine a while back, solved it when i replaced my brakes with the vt upgrade, id say your wheel bearings may also be stuffed, be good to replace them now anyway

[RVN 355]

yeah could be anything try the tyres 1st,rims then get it too a suspension pro.

[levymetal]

On the subject, what could cause my car not to keep a straight line while driving? By this I don't mean 'when i take my hand off the wheel, it veers to the left', I actually mean, when I am holding the wheel, it goes from left to right, as if it's picking up the bumps in the road and following them. On some roads, it's a fight to keep the car on the road... Also got a P/S leak which I think is from the rack itself, already replaced pump to no avail.

[KRUPTD]

When i mentioned front suspenion bushes i didnt mean the top shock rubbers.I ment the front castor/ z bar rubbers and your front lower control arm bushes and rear z bar bushes.Sorry forgot to mention front steering and suspension bushes.
Also for a car to pull one way,you might have a bent sway bar at the rear or bent or broken swaybar links at the front or you might need to get a wheel alignment,Hope that helps.Also i have one thought maybe check your front wheel bearings,because its a VN they are adjustable,check for excessive play should not have more than 8mm play at the wheel(not steering wheel on front of car).I would suggest repacking the wheel bearings if they arent too bad condition,but if they are burnt coloured or pitted and the bearing cups are scored or pitted i would replace them.cheers

[Just_a_stocker]

It probably is your tie rod ends if they say they are stuffed replace them.
did you get a balance and alighnment?

balljoints ,bearings and link pin bushes are all good to replace.

sadly ball joints are a bit of a bastard to replace,

depending on your tie rods they can also be bent like when you twist them they wobble.kinda like a bent pool cue , if you know what i mean.

[immortality]

if the guy picked that your tie rods are stuffed he should never have bothered to do the wheel alignment as your going to have to get it redone after fitting new tie rods. check your wheel bearings, i found that when i fitted 17's on the VN that they were a touch loose although seemed fine with the standard 14" wheels. if the balljoint has movement then you might as well do em now as well, otherwise you will need a new wheel alignment again if you do em later.

[speedyvn]

When i mentioned front suspenion bushes i didnt mean the top shock rubbers.I ment the front castor/ z bar rubbers and your front lower control arm bushes and rear z bar bushes.Sorry forgot to mention front steering and suspension bushes.
Also for a car to pull one way,you might have a bent sway bar at the rear or bent or broken swaybar links at the front or you might need to get a wheel alignment,Hope that helps.Also i have one thought maybe check your front wheel bearings,because its a VN they are adjustable,check for excessive play should not have more than 8mm play at the wheel(not steering wheel on front of car).I would suggest repacking the wheel bearings if they arent too bad condition,but if they are burnt coloured or pitted and the bearing cups are scored or pitted i would replace them.cheers

Checked the Bearings and the play in them and I did them exactly word for word in the haynes ellery Workshop manual. One of the wheels looked like the oil was ****ed but closer inspection tells me the oil is fine... dad is a bit reluctant about changing the bearings he recons that they are fine although not checking them himself as he doesnt know too much about commodores he's really the gineous at describing how the part is supposed to work.

The bearings in the wheels however have not been changed since I have owned the car.

[speedyvn]

if the guy picked that your tie rods are stuffed he should never have bothered to do the wheel alignment as your going to have to get it redone after fitting new tie rods. check your wheel bearings, i found that when i fitted 17's on the VN that they were a touch loose although seemed fine with the standard 14" wheels. if the balljoint has movement then you might as well do em now as well, otherwise you will need a new wheel alignment again if you do em later.

Well I have changed the tie rods and it hasnt improved 1 bit... even after doing what I said in the post above it still hasnt changed the behavior of the car at 100 onwards.. even checked to see if there were any bolts loose such as the engine mounts mentioned in a post alittle above WHICH WERE LOOSE. I've tightened those and that still hasnt done any improvement

I've checked the tightness of the rack and I've checked the tightness of pretty much everything.

as described in my very first post yes I got it wheel aligned and balanced which is where they told me the tie rods where screwed... at least you'll be able to align it correctly now lol... but still the problem hasnt been solved so I think I'll let it go and live with it unless someone else comes up with an idea... I dont wanna really spend on getting a suspension pro because I've already had to spend abit just to get the damn thing on the road.. and when selling it which I'm gonna do once off my p's I'm gonna have to be looking for around 2 grand.

Thats all from me,

James

[Dayvo]

.Also had a similar prob with my old VN a couple of years back .It was a dodgy strut insert which took me about 2 weeks to find .Try jacking the car up one side at a time till the wheel is off the ground
then grab the wheel and try and lift it straight up . I done that to mine and had about 50mm free play . Just a thought , Have you checked the steering rack to chassis mounting bolts

[1991_Vn2nV]

Make sure the wheel balance is good too.

[speedyvn]

.Also had a similar prob with my old VN a couple of years back .It was a dodgy strut insert which took me about 2 weeks to find .Try jacking the car up one side at a time till the wheel is off the ground
then grab the wheel and try and lift it straight up . I done that to mine and had about 50mm free play . Just a thought , Have you checked the steering rack to chassis mounting bolts

Will give that a try when it stops raining.

[speedyvn]

Make sure the wheel balance is good too.

I'll be watching while he does the wheel alignment and balance

[Not_An_Abba_Fan]

Take it somewhere else to get the wheels balanced. The first place may have a machine thats out. My money is on a dodgy balance or out of round tyres.

[1991_Vn2nV]

Yeah as above.

Had my last wheel balance at Tyrepower, and I had shaking issues in the steering wheel, quite bad. Went to bob janes and got another wheel balace and that was that.

[speedyvn]

My money is on a dodgy balance or out of round tyres.

Out of round tyres? umm might sound like a stupid question but what does that mean? I'm pretty sure the wheels are very well balanced but "out of round tyres" lol.

I have blue streaks. If that makes things easier.

[Not_An_Abba_Fan]

When the wheel is spinning on the balancer, watch the tread, if it moves up and down then the tyre is out of round. To make sure it is the tyre and not the rim, look at the rim lip where it meets the bead of the tyre. Sometimes the bead isn't seated properly and you will see the line around the bead move up and down in relation to the rim.

Blue streaks? You mean the tyres that give off blue smoke when you do a skid? I didn't think these tyres were meant for the road, they may be your problem.