Bit of a wobble!

Driving home from work in the old 110 I hit a bumpy patch in the downhill stretch of road doing about 40mph and the steering wobbled around to the point where I slowed and almost pulled over to a stop. I carried on very carefully and everything seemed fine. Only had chance for a quick look but I did notice the steering damper can be turned owing to the ball joint on the drivers side. I dont mean turned as though it was rolling evenly but the left side near the joint cants over as the joint moves and the right side stays fixed. Is this normal and could this be the possible cause? Tyres, tyre pressures, shockers and springs are all relatively new and ok.

Bushes okay?

As far as I know. It had an oil change and new fan belt on it yesterday and the mechanics a landy man and usually takes a good look over. I would have thought he would have spotted worn bushes but who knows.

Death wobble??????

steveyorks said:

As far as I know. It had an oil change and new fan belt on it yesterday and the mechanics a landy man and usually takes a good look over. I would have thought he would have spotted worn bushes but who knows.

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They can look okay when still but be buggered in actual use.

Drop arm ball joint also give whacky symptoms

Check the panhard rod bushes using a prybar rather than visual, check the steering arm ball joints, and check the swivel bushes/bearings for play (usually the top one that goes. All of these will give some very odd steering symptoms.

I had this issue (amongst many others). Turned out it was the steering damper. I have a Momo steering wheel, when they fit this whenever it was they "upgraded" the steering damper, apparently they're sh*t so put in a genuine one, also changed the bushes....wobble gone.

Check swivel bush preload.

As above, swivels, panhard rod bushes, drop arm ball joint, basically anything that would give excessive play in the suspension. My old truck had an "interesting" wobble on the overrun which was caused by worn rear trailing arm bushes. Fine on acceleration as everything was under compression but on overrun the slack allowed the rear axle to basically steer itself, ususally to the sound of me shouting "Get in a f*cking straight line" at it.