I have a bit of a shake at 55-60 mph. I balanced all the wheels to within 1/4 oz and the run out seems to be ok. I looked at the alingment procedure in the WSM and it sure looks complex. Weighting the car, installing shims, measuring with special tool etc. It's too much for me. How do you get this done? Is this the kind of job that any shop that does alignments can handle?
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front end alignment
- Thread starter Thor 1211
- Start date
Practically nobody does all that. The Alpine alignment is quite forgiving. Basically, if both wheels are pointing in the same direction, have the same camber (close to zero, plus or minus 1 degree) about an eighth inch toe in (some prefer toe out) and the caster is about 3 degrees, your okay.
In any event, vibration is not caused by alignment. That is caused by things being unbalanced or out of round. Also, tires that have a bad belt, even if they are round AND balanced. I've had several of those though out the years.
Bill
In any event, vibration is not caused by alignment. That is caused by things being unbalanced or out of round. Also, tires that have a bad belt, even if they are round AND balanced. I've had several of those though out the years.
Bill
alingment
Bill:
As far as alignment goes, I gues if I have to I can resort to the methods used by other owners who have posted to threads in the forum.
As far as the vibration is concerned, what you say is sort of what I thought initially, but the rims are brand new and the tires probably didn't have 100 miles on them when I balanced them. But I didn't think about a bad belt. There are 5 wheels with the spare, so I guess I'll start swapping out wheels to see if I can find the culprit.
Thanks Bill.
Bill:
As far as alignment goes, I gues if I have to I can resort to the methods used by other owners who have posted to threads in the forum.
As far as the vibration is concerned, what you say is sort of what I thought initially, but the rims are brand new and the tires probably didn't have 100 miles on them when I balanced them. But I didn't think about a bad belt. There are 5 wheels with the spare, so I guess I'll start swapping out wheels to see if I can find the culprit.
Thanks Bill.
Do you have wire wheels or steel wheels? Supposedly wires can be tricky to balance properly.
Could worn or maladjusted (front) wheel bearings cause vibrations? I know I have an issue where one front rotor "wobbles", not sure if something is bent or the bearings aren't seated correctly, but our car shakes too. Of course it has a lot of issues.
Could worn or maladjusted (front) wheel bearings cause vibrations? I know I have an issue where one front rotor "wobbles", not sure if something is bent or the bearings aren't seated correctly, but our car shakes too. Of course it has a lot of issues.
the shake
Initially I'd say that I can feel it through the steering wheel most but thinking about it I'd have to say it doesn't tug away at the steering wheel like with some of the out of balance wheels I've had. In fact, I think it may be felt in the body too so I am going to start with the rear wheels first.
The car has brand new wire wheels and I machined a special set of cones to balance them properly. Because I haven't taken a look at the wheel bearings since I got the car, I'll take sunbby's advice and have a go at them too. At the least they probably need repacking. I say that because until today I never looked in the steering box to check the fluid level and had to put a lot of gear oil in to fill it up. So now I'm worried about the prior owner's general level of maintenance on these items.
Initially I'd say that I can feel it through the steering wheel most but thinking about it I'd have to say it doesn't tug away at the steering wheel like with some of the out of balance wheels I've had. In fact, I think it may be felt in the body too so I am going to start with the rear wheels first.
The car has brand new wire wheels and I machined a special set of cones to balance them properly. Because I haven't taken a look at the wheel bearings since I got the car, I'll take sunbby's advice and have a go at them too. At the least they probably need repacking. I say that because until today I never looked in the steering box to check the fluid level and had to put a lot of gear oil in to fill it up. So now I'm worried about the prior owner's general level of maintenance on these items.
serIIalpine
Donation Time
Do you have wire wheels or steel wheels? Supposedly wires can be tricky to balance properly.
Could worn or maladjusted (front) wheel bearings cause vibrations? I know I have an issue where one front rotor "wobbles", not sure if something is bent or the bearings aren't seated correctly, but our car shakes too. Of course it has a lot of issues.
Whatever is causing this is a HUGE safety concern!
Adjust this FIRST and then move on to other projects.
Good luck
Eric
the shakes
I adjusted the wheel bearings and took out about 10 thou of endfloat on each front hub. Along with rebalancing all 4 wheels, that seemed to cure a lot of the vibration.
Anyway, I was mystified to see that the WSM calls for 2 to 7 thou endfloat to prevent "knock back" on the brakes? Any bearings I ever installed called for a certain amount of preload and I read a Timken article one time that said if the bearings were properly greased and preloaded they would go 100 million miles plus without problem.
Do you really need the endfloat and how in the heck do you adjust for 2 thou preload? With the dial indicator in place one finger push/pull on the disc will deflect the whole assembly more than that.
thanks in advance to any responders.
I adjusted the wheel bearings and took out about 10 thou of endfloat on each front hub. Along with rebalancing all 4 wheels, that seemed to cure a lot of the vibration.
Anyway, I was mystified to see that the WSM calls for 2 to 7 thou endfloat to prevent "knock back" on the brakes? Any bearings I ever installed called for a certain amount of preload and I read a Timken article one time that said if the bearings were properly greased and preloaded they would go 100 million miles plus without problem.
Do you really need the endfloat and how in the heck do you adjust for 2 thou preload? With the dial indicator in place one finger push/pull on the disc will deflect the whole assembly more than that.
thanks in advance to any responders.
It would take a miracle to adjust the front wheel bearings to 2 thou preload. The castellated nut simply does not afford that kind of sensitivity of adjustment. I think you would have to resort to washers of various thickness to be used under the nut.
I have no idea how you could measure 2 thou as the first step would be to determine zero preload. Perhaps a person could use rotational resistance as the arbiter, but where would you find such data? Over the years I have found that chasing such accuracy under field conditions leads only to the madhouse. Wheel bearings are not that expensive!
Bill
I have no idea how you could measure 2 thou as the first step would be to determine zero preload. Perhaps a person could use rotational resistance as the arbiter, but where would you find such data? Over the years I have found that chasing such accuracy under field conditions leads only to the madhouse. Wheel bearings are not that expensive!
Bill
Jay Laifman
Donation Time
Another cause of vibration can be worn out tie rods or the cross over tube connections.