Steering Issue

[Phil]

G'day all,

Well holden are going to replace the FE2 sports suspension on my SS (Front and rear) with all new FE2 next Thurdays. Also they are redoing all the bushes in the front end and making sure there are no bent arms. Another techincal person had asked the question if the FE2 had been replaced and the answer was no.

They said that it should have been done after replacing the rack made no difference. Also I am getting a new set of B530 Bridgstones from Holden... They believe the problem should be fixed...

I will be upgrading next year for the new model SS ... cannt wait to see the new V8 engine..

I will post the results late next week..

Phil

 

[Garth]

if only i read this post before, i have a mate who as the same car, with the same issue, after us sitting there, thinking of the problem, (many beers later and a nasty hangover the next morning) we came to the following conclusion, it infact was suspension. link bushes for sway bar, i hope this helps holden rebuilt his car for nothing

 

[Phil]

hehe Garth,

Always better late then never.... It is my car they are doing it too.

Its like having a slightly unbalanced wheel. At a particular speed the steering wheel wobbles from side to side... its not an uncontrolable wobble but just more anoying than anything..

Cheers anyway mate...

Phil

 

[Phil]

Well guys,

The struts, rear shocks, sway bar links, strut tower bearings and strut mount brackets were replaced.

No new tyres or front end bushes.

The problem is still there!!.... bugger

The car feels nice on the road and handels like new (well it should now). The sway bar links were bent at one end on both... maybe that would be?... I wouldnt think so though.

I am not sure what to start looking at now.. maybe tyres?.. this is a costly exercise and would prefer to have a swap under testing before hand but thats going to be difficult.

I am hoping is not engine related as the engine had the rebuild back in Nov 02 for the excess oil use.. pretty standard proceedure... I might contact Bridgestone and see if they will do a new set of tyres for me... hahaha.. yeah right..

Anyway back to the thinking....

Phil

 

[Phil]

G'day all again,

Just another update. I went to my local JAX tyres on Friday arvo, they told me that I should have had a wheel alignment after having the suspension replaced.

The guys here at my local JAX shop are unreal they know how to setup a performance car so it runs great on the road. For anyone in Canberra wanting a good aligner give me a hoi and I will give you there names and tell them Phil sent you.. They did the alignment and the Toe was way out.. They rectified that.

The other thing they did was rebalance the front wheels for me which were out by 5grams on one side and 25grams on the other. They said this might rectify the shake issue. As it had been done so many times before they said the balance may have been setup to compensate for the problem. Once you changed everything in the front that would then make the wheels out of balance.

Well this morning I took the car for a run and didnt experiance the problem. . But I will need to do some further tests to make absolutly sure..

 

[Phil]

Just completed some further testing today and the problem is still there.

Guess I will have to wait until the tyres wear out so I can change them.

 

[VT Calais]

How did you go?


Don't worry I missed the second page.

 

[Phil]

Well guys and gals reading this lengthy saga....

I think I have solved the problem......

I was speaking to one of the service advisors from Holden the other day who had not been involved from the start. He told me that Ford had a similar problem and it turned out to be power steering pump problems. Distorted hose lines and pump pulsing problems...

Last night I took the engine cover off and had a good look at the pump and fluid reservoir and hoses. I found that there was a cable tie crushing the inlet and return hoses together. I hadnt noticed this before and removed the cable tie and worked the hoses back to a nice round shape.

This morning while driving to work there was no problem at all... I could not produce the steering wheel shimmy it all felt reay good. I know this sounds to easy, especialy for me. So I will see how it goes on the way home from work and test it over a few days, maybe even put a cable tie back on the hoses to see if it does it again.. Again this is the only thing I had done after driving home last night with the problem there and putting the car in the garage.

Heres hoping!! (a 20 cent part can ruin a v8supercar team on race day) amazing.

One other thing maybe some of you people out there with GENIII SS's could have a look and see if the 2 hoses coming from the powersteering fluid reservoir is cable tied tighly..

Cheers

 

[Phil]

Latest Update!!..

I had a trip to the coast last weekend and nearly shook myself to bits. I had just had another wheel balance before hitting the highyway.

On the way home I couldnt take it anymore and desided to remove some of the stick-on weights. I removed about 50 grams total from the 4 wheels(mostly the rear wheels). This improved the vibration in the car. When I got home I removed a further 40 grams from the rear wheels, this improved the vibration other than my initial problem.

On Monday this week I went to the local Discount tyre centre near my work and asked them to do a 4 wheel balance. It took them about 40mins and they said the wheels were over balance by 15 - 20grams. When I drove home that afternoon all the vibrations had gone even the problem I have been having with the shimmy through the steering wheel. When I got home I checked out how much weight were placed on the wheels.. On the front right there is about 25grams stick on pluss then inside edge weight which I think is 10 grams, On the left front there are no stickon weights and about 25 grams inside edge weight. On the right rear there is about 35grams stickon and a small inside edge weight and on the right rear there are no stickon weights and about 30grams inside edge weight.

I spoke to the Discount tyres and they said when they do the stickon weights they use a centre plate for the wheel and if the wheel requires a lot of weight they will deflate the tyre and move the tyre on the rim untill the weight is reduced to the minimum amount.

For 5 days now I have been driving the car normaly and the original problem seems to be staying away... Seems like there was a problem in the rear all along..
I am hoping it doesnt reoccur... I am keeping my fingers crossed.

I hope this info may help others with a similar issue.

Cheers all,

Phil

 

[Garth]

about bloody time you got it fixed, it was turning out to be a day's of our lives saga, just think, now you can enjoy wobble free holden crusing in luxuray and comfort. glad to hear it's finaly fixed

cheers
garth