Death Wobble Persistant issue

thanks for idea will give it a go

Shocks will only affect the up and down movement, not side to side. Hitting a pothole when the "shaking" starts tells me the problem is in the hubs/swivel bearings.

Unless its some kind of bizarre/unlikely axle tramp...?

had this problem recently on a 300 tdi disco,after weeks of arsing about changing every thing possible, i took 1 thin shim out of top swivel pin on each side and cured the problem instantly.

just had same on mine, very scarey violent wobble/shake replaced bushes, cellular steering damper to no avail. adjusted preload on swivels and its cured, adjusted a tad tighter than LR suggest.

Hi,

I know what you are experiencing. I had the same on my D1 and I have just had it back from a local specialist. They said that this is a common problem and usually is a combination of things all playing together. Mine happens around 60mph and just like yours the only option is to slow down. Speeding up only makes it worse.

Mine is like a wheel out of balance only to the force of 100.

It doesnt happen all the time. I can drive 80mph and its fine. But there is one section of road over here (an 'A' or main road) where the surface has some imperfections in it. You wouldnt notice it unless you looked but given that I have the use of another car, I drove it and observed this.

When I took it in for an MOT the garage diagnosed Pan Hard rod bushes. These were changed but it made no difference.

The specialist however changed the steering damper and the track rod and ends. It seems, in the limited time I have driven it to have stopped it.

However I will be watching this thread carefully as I think I may be back to post soon (hopefully not though !)

Kind regards

James

Update: I did not get the chance to stand by the roadside and take some photos of the problem whilst someone else drove the car past. On Friday night the car broke down a few miles from home, I had to get a transporter to bring it home. Saturday I investigated and found that the alternator had seized. It was locked tight and actually prevented the engine from being turned over by the starter. Removed the alternator and stripped it. The front bearing had completely broken up and the stator has shorted to earth. Spent today trying to find another alternator in Brunei, best price about 700 dollars that is 350 pounds! (Robbing gits) New one in UK for 86 pounds! Eventually found somewhere that will rewind the stator for 100 pounds. Looking like the best option unless I can get one out from the UK. I have managed to borrow some known good OEM shocks to try, once the car is back on the road. I will post an update, as I know its frustrating that people do not follow up sometimes.

Good man, one of my pet hates, lack of feedback. I dont mind being wrong and I'm sure you dont either

Hi guys and girls,
still on track with this. Just waiting to get new alternator to investigate further. In the mean time, I have removed shims from both pivot bearings to stiffen up the hubs, this really goes against my usual standards, as these were set up perfectly in accordance with the manual when i replaced the bearings. I removed the equivalent of three of the thinnest shims from each side, I am looking forward to giving it a try, as i can see that it should reduce the shimmy. However, I am concerned that there may be something else wrong, as i should not have to go out of LR spec for adjusting the bearings. A good friend who is an engineer with experience on 4x4 suggest fitting new bushes to radius arms with built in additional castor angle offset. I can see how this would help if it is the pivot bearings, but this would suggest that there is a defect from manufacture or design? I also have a pair of shocks on standby to try if this fails. Will update when i have the piece of c**p back on the road.

Hi,
what have you set the pre load to ??
was it consistant from lock to lock or was it loose around the center position and tighter when you moved away from center??

I had something similar when a front propshaft went out of balance, check the UJs with a long bar.

As said many things can contribute to the death wobble On me 90 I changed Panhard bushes, front radius arm bushes, wheel bearings, front swivels & front swivel bearings, steering damper. shocks, nothing helped until I changed the rear trailing arm to chassis bushes. which cured the problem. seems I was getting rear wheel steer on it.. :doh:

redhand said:

as said many things can contribute to the death wobble on me 90 i changed panhard bushes, front radius arm bushes, wheel bearings, front swivels & front swivel bearings, steering damper. Shocks, nothing helped until i rolled it onto its side whilst laning, that seemed to cure it:d

Click to expand...

:d

johnlad said:

Click to expand...

Funnily enough It started after I'd rolled it

bramh said:

Hi,
what have you set the pre load to ??
was it consistant from lock to lock or was it loose around the center position and tighter when you moved away from center??

Click to expand...

Hi, the pre-load was set to about 1.5kg pull off when I changed the bearings. I have now set it to approx 2.5 kg. It was consistent about the whole turn angle when originally set but had slackened off around the middle position.

Alternator issue follow on:- After giving someone else advice on an alternator issue my own alternator failed. No problem I thought, a friend ordered one up from the UK for only 45 quid plus post. (I live in Brunei). When it arrived it was a Brit-Part, my friend apologized as I have previously said some abusive things about Brit-Part, no problem I said, its only an alternator what can go wrong! Well, firsts of all there was no pulley, so I fitted my old one, I then fitted the alternator. The belt would not fit as there was a spacer on the alternator shaft that needed removing to allow the pulley to align. After originally fitting the pulley nut with Locktite studlock, I had a hell of a job removing it. Anyway, got if off in the end and then realised there was also no fan fitted to the front of the alternator, (the old one had an integral fan). After sorting out the fan and pulley, I refitted the alternator and started the engine. Battery light would not go out! I checked voltage and no power from alternator. As I live on the other side of the world, sending the piece of crap back was not an option, so I pulled it apart and found that two diodes had fallen apart inside on the rectifier plate. After much work robbing parts from the old alternator I fixed the rectifier and tried again. Still no voltage! I had no method of checking further so took to a local repair shop, they diagnosed the fault and replaced the voltage regulator for 60 quid. Whilst I had the thing apart I noticed that there were no brand names on anything, the diodes were tiny, the diodes and wires were not crimped just soldered (hence falling apart) the bearing at the back had no seal and grease was coming out already contaminating the brushes and slip ring!
Keep well away from Brit-part alternators and anything else, the quality is appalling. I am now going to purchase a new Denso or OEM Magnetti Marelli item as i have no faith in this thing lasting. Sorry I deviated but I hope the info is of help to someone. Back to the death wobble!

Back on track at last. After adjusting the pivot bearings and replacing the alternator I took the Disco out for a drive. I had a friend with a video in a car in front. Unfortunately the video was not good enough to see the wobble when it occurred, but my friend did notice that it was shimmy not bouncing. The shimmy appears to cause the bouncing to start after a few moments, I suspect this is caused by the gyroscopic effect of the spinning wheel. The adjustment of the pivot bearing shims has had a slight effect, it did not wobble on smaller bumps, but you can still feel that it it starts to tug the steering wheel. I have removed the knackered Brit-Part steering damper (yes, a fancy foam one with no off road work) and it feels virtually no different. My next move is to remove some more shims, if that does not work, I will replace the Brit-Part foam dampers with some oil filled original specification and try again. I will update the post in the next few days.

Ok, my appologies for the break, I have not abandoned the quest to correct the wobble! I have been away on Christmas holiday. To recap, I have removed the steering damper and some shims from the pivot bearings. This has resulted in a slight improvement at lower speeds but still have the wobble at higher speeds, and still just as bad once it starts. I have not been driving the car much as the alternator is knackered and I am waiting a new diode pack and regulator to come out from the UK. I plan to remove more shims from the pivot bearings this weekend and will follow up after that.

Do not over tighten the swivel bearings for the sake of it, I run mine at about 8kg I think, tighter than factory spec but still feeling smooth. I would describe them as firm.

I have 99% got rid of my wobble issue. Sometimes just sometimes you can feel it trying to get started on a wobble but it doesn't happen.

I have tightened swivels (which made a big difference), replaced steering damper (which didn't seem to help) and replaced panhard rod with adjustable, which has rose joint at one end and OEM solid type at the other, this appears to have stopped the wobble from actually happening. I have also tightened up a loose rear trailing arm axle bolt which was causing a rear end knock, not sure if that's made any difference.

Anyway I did 250 miles the other day without a wobble

Thanks Mr. Noisy! I might try something along the lines of the panhard rod modification. I had the car jacked up again the other day and inspected all ball joints, bushes and bolts. No problems found. I also checked the swivel play and found it was the same as I had adjusted it to previously, not slackening off. I replaced the steering damper and took it for a run and found it is a bit better, but can still feel that it wants to shimmy, its just that the damper is stopping it running away. I have some poly bushes for the panhard rod so will try them next, also want to get around to trying some more shocks that I have.