Bad steering shaking??? help please??

The steering and everything else shakes like mad randomly when going over a slight bump. Its pretty bad and dangerouse I think. I had a look underneath but cant see anything obviouse. Its an series 3 109

standard reply:-swivel hub preload,steering damper,steering box freeplay and bushes

And there's me hoping for a half day at work tomorrow ha ha looks like i'm going to be a busy boy! cheers buddy

Does it have a steering damper on it

nope, no damper just the rods and linkages straight from the steering box, just had a quick nosey underneath and noticed some fluid on both the front inner tyres and the back plates look damp. do you think it could be a braking fault i.e shoes contaminated and liners come away from shoe? However i'm not having any breaking problems at all but not sure if im loosing brake fluid at the moment

Is it leaking from your swivel ball wipers and running down?

Do you have FWH's fitted, and if so do they work properly, and gave plenty of grease in them?

Check that your swivel balls have plenty of oil/one-shot grease in them, otherwise it could be that your transmission is picking up and giving you the problem!

fluid could be EP90 from the diff coming past seals, check axle breather is clear
how much steering wheel play is there
theres 6ish ball joints or so to check for play, have you ruled out wheel balance

Im pretty sure its not wheel balance because I can choose bumps in the road to make it happen however it only seems to happen when taking a bump on one side. I had a good look underneath today and checked all steering joints and spring u-bolts. All i could find was front lower sock bush badly worn. Im not actually sure if i have free wheeling hubs, i don't think i do but how do i find out anyway?

Look at the back outer hubs, if the front are the same then you dont have free wheeling hubs. The free wheeling bits are fitted to the outer hubs. Have you checked your shock absorbers?

no i dont have free wheeling hubs then, all the shocks look fine, no leeks no clonks on bumps just that one worn bush on the nsf lower. the steering shakes like mad right untill i slow right down if that helps at all, I am really struggling to find something wrong underneath it all seem surprisingly good! could the steering box be at fault when the shock of a bump travels up? and also there is quite abit of play in the steering but nothing i was to concerned about, apparently the amount is normal land rover amount of play ha ha

Lift the front so both wheels are off the ground - some of the steering bits don't show much play if the weight of the vehicle is sitting on them. Then go through it a bit at a time. Check wheel bearings, swivel bearings, steering rod balljoints (all 6), steering relay (could be loose or seized) and steering box. Something will be obvious.

I will check that tomorrow, i have checked the wheel bearings but only one side jacket up at a time.

Thanks for all the help aswell

I jacked each axle separately and still nothing, I'm pretty sure the fluid leak is brake fluid not axle oil. No more work for a while so will have to take it in in the new year

Have you got a spongy pedal, and how much brake fluid are you losing??

my pedal is not spongy at all but I am loosing brake fluid. It did it again today, it is quite sever. As soon as it starts if slow right down its goes but it it only when hitting bumps its goes wonky. starting to think it may be down to some play in the steering ( about 2 ")

Is there any sign of wetness on any of your backplates?

Check inside your drums as well, as it sounds as though either one of your pipes may have corroded or you are losing fluid through a cylinder seal.

Losing fluid should keep you off the road until you have found and sorted it!!

i had a bad shake on my 88" bitsa when i hit potholes/bumps in the road, i also had to slow down to a crawl to get it back under control, this fault was allowing both my front wheels to flap from left to right and back again rapidly continuously

my problem was a track rod end came loose in one of the drag links, the one from the steering box drop arm to the relay in the chassis member was the one that was at fault for me, this was pretty dangerous as if i hadn't have sorted it my steering would have come apart

mine was so violent that i couldn't control my steering wheel and was rather scary

get it sorted as soon as possible or you're likely to be crashing, ignore all these oil leaks as they're just a red herring in my opinion, sort them out after getting the steering safe

it's a two man job to check all the joints, one man in the cab waggling the steering wheel, you underneath feeling all the joints for movement that shouldn't be there

under no circumstances should you be driving this motor until you've found and rectified this problem

the problem sounds like exactly what you have just said, Im going to jump onit now, will be letting you know soon ho i get on

Just checked all the track ends, none felt loose but when i checked for tightness the one that joines the steering box arm was cross threaded but looks new! i had to cut the nut off because it was so damaged but like i say it was tight first so still not sure if its going to cure it

Also just checked all the joints between steering box and relay and nothing is loose or seem to be causing a problem