DrT Posted July 23, 2007 Share Posted July 23, 2007 For some time now I've had a problem where if I drive my Discovery over 60mph and I hit a bump (even a cat's eye) the steering seems to go into some sort of resonance and shakes violently. I can still steer and brake but the shaking is horrendous. If I let the Disco slow down of its own accord then at some speed around 40 mph it suddenly stops shaking and returns to normal. I've replaced the steering damper, replaced the swivel hubs and all the bearings in them. Checked the preload. It still does the shakes. Any ideas? Tim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BogMonster Posted July 23, 2007 Share Posted July 23, 2007 I would have said steering damper but you have ruled that out... and the next thing I would have said would have been swivel preload. Have you had the wheel balance checked? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
western Posted July 23, 2007 Share Posted July 23, 2007 Change the panhard rod bushes or at the very least check for wear in them, my 110 was doing similar but couldn't get above 35 before the violent shakes started. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrT Posted July 23, 2007 Author Share Posted July 23, 2007 Yep, checked the wheel balance. I will take a look at the panhard rod bushes (when the rain stops!), thanks for the ideas. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
russ3120 Posted July 23, 2007 Share Posted July 23, 2007 Do you have a suspension lift, if so has the castor angle been changed on the front axle? sometimes if its not been corrected it can cause `bump steer`. but i would also try having the wheels rebalnced, if you havn`t had them done recently Russ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thys Posted July 23, 2007 Share Posted July 23, 2007 For some time now I've had a problem where if I drive my Discovery over 60mph and I hit a bump (even a cat's eye) the steering seems to go into some sort of resonance and shakes violently. I can still steer and brake but the shaking is horrendous. If I let the Disco slow down of its own accord then at some speed around 40 mph it suddenly stops shaking and returns to normal.I've replaced the steering damper, replaced the swivel hubs and all the bearings in them. Checked the preload. It still does the shakes. Any ideas? Tim Hi Tim! I had the same problem with my Discovery, as a matter of fact the seller warned me that the steering gets the shakes at 90 km/h and continues up to 110 km/h. Having checked out all the machanical items it was back to the tyres. Three reputable wheel balancing companies tried, and allthough the balancing equipment indicated the rims and tyres were balanced, the shakes did not go away! By pure luck I passed a tyre dealer and noted the majority of vehicles in the bays were Land Rovers. I stopped and enquired about the large number of Land Rovers, to be proudly informed that they have the contract to balance the local Land Rover Dealer's rims and tyres. What followed was an eye opener to me. All four rims were removed, and the tyres removed from the rims. All four rims were checked for roundness, and all four rims had some form of out-off-roundness. I had them check my two spares as well. They then took the two "best" rims, put the tyres back on and checked the tyres. Both front tyres, allthough new, had "flat spots", but not visible to the naked eye. They then proceeded to repaetedly balance the tyres on the rims, by rotating the tyre on the rim, untill they reached a point with the least imbalance, and then added balancing weights. Interesting point was that the final tyre position was not the tyre manufacturer's valve allignment position. I took her for a test drive and the shaking was gone, with an occasional faint shimmy if I traveled over an uneven patch of road. I went back to the dealer to thank and pay them. Asking for an explanation for this scenario, they had two points; Land Rover Discovery not being in the light weight class, has a tendancy to deform the tyres if the vehicle is stationary for long periods. The steel rims does have a tendacy to go out-off-round if subjected to extreme harsh rock bashing, but they also mentioned that one will buy a brand new rim, and find it is out-off-round. Moral of this story, my problems will go away if I replace the tyres, but at R 1100 each, for a Bridgestone Dueller, I will live with the shimmy for a while! Regards from SA Thys Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BogMonster Posted July 23, 2007 Share Posted July 23, 2007 Land Rover Discovery not being in the light weight class, has a tendancy to deform the tyres if the vehicle is stationary for long periods. Land Rover used to ship all the vehicles with about 50psi in all the tyres just to stop that very problem, and there was also a bulletin quite a few years ago about one particular sort of tyre (Goodyears I think) "flat spotting"on vehicles in hot countries if the vehicles were in storage for a while. I've even noticed it on my Discovery, if the vehicle is parked up for a week or two, you sometimes get a bit of a wobble in the steering for a while but it soon goes away. Crossply tyres are much worse, I drove a vehicle with a set of General SAG xply 7.50s on a few years ago and I thought the damn thing had square wheels on, it had been sitting for a couple of weeks, but after a couple of miles it was fine. I guess it's why they used to say you should jack up vehicles that are in storage... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freeagent Posted July 24, 2007 Share Posted July 24, 2007 get your tracking checked... when I bought my disco last year (1995 300TDi) it used to vibrate wildly when it hit a bump in the road, I had the front wheels re-ballanced which made little difference, then decided to get the tracking checked, it was only a couple of mm out, but drove like a different car when i left the garage...... its worth £25 to find out......... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrT Posted November 24, 2007 Author Share Posted November 24, 2007 Well, the problem seems to have been fixed! Gnasher was happily doing 85mph on the motorway tonight with absolutely no shakes. The solution was to change his tyres from worn, cheap road tyres (205 85s) to BF Goodrich 245 70s! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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