RE: Help needed to find vibration

From: Rick Barnes (rascal@scrtc.com)
Date: Thu Jul 20 2006 - 00:12:30 EDT


Could it be the shocks? When you lift the truck and the front end drops, it
allows full travel of the shocks...just a guess..gotta think about that one.

Rascal

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-dakota-truck@bent.twistedbits.net
[mailto:owner-dakota-truck@bent.twistedbits.net] On Behalf Of Robert Schultz
Sent: Wednesday, July 19, 2006 10:42 PM
To: dakota-truck-moderator@bent.twistedbits.net
Subject: DML: Help needed to find vibration

Everyone:

For the last three months or more, I've had a bad vibration or shimmy in
my 00 QC 2WD. The vibration is felt through he steering wheel and at its
worst the steering wheel moves up to 1/2" each way. It's bad enough that
I really don't like driving the truck right now.

I really started to notice it when I put new tires on the truck after
the winter and initially thought it was the tires. They've been
re-balanced and there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with them. As a
test I switched back to the winter tires (235/75/15) on the front and
the shimmy was reduced, but not gone. I suspect this is because the
winter tires don't follow the road as well. The summer tires are Khumo
Ecsta 255/50/17. These tend to tramline much worse, and the shimmy is
worst when the road surface is poor. My theory is stiffer sidewall =
more of the problem transmitted tot he steering wheel.

I had the truck in to the dealer and they checked the balance (again)
and replaced the lower ball joints (uppers done last year). The truck
was aligned last year after installing the Hotchkis 2" drop.

The odd thing is that every time we lift the truck to change the tires,
the shimmy is reduced, and then returns. For instance, I jacked up the
truck today just to check things, and then on the way to the dealer it
wasn't too bad until I hit a depression in the road that compressed the
suspension. Then the shimmy was back full force.

I'm at a loss. It's going back in Monday to see what they can find.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated, so when the dealer blames the
tires (aftermarket = bad) or the Hotchkis suspension (modification =
bad) I have something to tell them.

Thanks,
Rob S.
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