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Persistent Wobbly Steering


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Took the panhard rod off this morning, difficult to judge but there was some perishing of the rubber within the bushes and what looked like a split around the circumference of them, I could get maybe 1mm of movement levering the inside of the bush with a big screwdriver. They certainly weren't loose by any stretch but I guess the forces at work when the wheels are running over rough bits of road are quite severe so the play could be larger than I can produce on the bench. The bolts looked absolutely fine, as did the holes in the mounts both ends. No signs of any oval-ing or wear at all, and no signs that the inner bush sleeve had been moving in relation to the mount - so I am happy with that aspect.

I dug out my spare panhard rod, this has a set of very knackered genuine bushes in so i will get them replaced with new genuine ones and swap it over. I suppose it's also perfectly possible that something else could be causing the issue (loose swivel housings etc.) and this has over time knackered the bushes and replacing them will just mask the issue for a while. What I really should do is set up a camera under the car to see exactly what is moving when the issue occurs.

The panhard bushes on the car at the moment have been on there for 3-1/2 years and done 50,000 miles - is that about right in terms of their expected lifespan?

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I had dreadful unpredictable wander from my RRC, especially on the ruts of the outside motorway lanes. It was tracking. I'd suggest you get laser wheel alignment done. I don't think your curtain pole is accurate enough (I have tried something similar and get inconsistent results). Even if it is not the cause, it's another thing you can confidently rule out.

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So I swapped the panhard rod today for one with new bushes in, no difference. Bolts in good condition as above. Still wobbly and horrible over bumps at speed :(

I do intend to get the tracking checked properly by a garage at some point, it's just finding the time to do it during the week.

I've also got a set of new front shocks on order to eliminate those from the enquiries. Gonna try putting a decent brand of has shocks on this time, so Konis are on order.

And I've got to strip one front hub off soon to do a seal so will up the preloads by a couple of lbs each side when I do that, at this stage anything is worth a go!

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I'll be honest, after four watches I can't see any movement other than the whole 'shot' going up and down?

I did wonder that your scrub-steer isn't 100% ? But maybe they never are? That's kind of a new-tech way of looking at it. With the effects of Castor it should move that much I felt, after thinking about it for a bit :)

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I'll be honest, after four watches I can't see any movement other than the whole 'shot' going up and down?

I did wonder that your scrub-steer isn't 100% ? But maybe they never are? That's kind of a new-tech way of looking at it. With the effects of Castor it should move that much I felt, after thinking about it for a bit :)

It's all standard, with HD (Wolf) wheels, so if it's off then it's nothing I've done!

For once I have positive developments to post regarding this issue. Today I swapped out the Boge 'standard fit' dampers on the front for a pair of Koni Heavy Tracks. Aside from being a pleasing red, they are a gas-filled design as well as being adjustable. I have set them on 2, out of 0 to 3.

I am pleased to say they have made a big difference to not only this issue but to the way the car drives. The steering shimmy is still present slightly on the very worst bits of road, but it is far reduced in magnitude compared to before. And lesser bumps now produce no movement, as a result the car feels far more planted to the road - and less like the front axle is trying to go it's own way at every bump.

The old Boge units did not appear to have failed in any way, the bushes were fine with no play and they moved smoothly with equal resistance through their movement range. They are about 3 years old and have done 45,000 miles or thereabouts, but the problem existed before I fitted them so not sure how they could affect it. Unless the old dampers were shagged, and these ones just weren't up to the job from the start? The rears have play in the upper bushes so need sorting, I will take the opportunity to put the same Koni units on the back as well - keeps everything balanced nicely.

The fact that the shimmy does still occur slightly on the worst bit of road along my test route means the root cause of this has still not been resolved, I suspect perhaps the swivel pre-load just needs to be upped a bit. I will increase the preload slightly on each side and see what happens when I get a chance.

Having written all that it occurs to me that all I've might have managed to do is mask the problem with better dampers! Will monitor things going forward and see what happens.

Thanks everyone for your contributions.

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Hi a couple of weeks ago my 110 started to shimmy on rough roads or should I just say normal roads as they are just terrible round here anyway had to replace cv joints last weekend and noticed draglink was bent on one end (standard one) so straightened it put it back together and everything was fine till Thursday night when it started again but I did notice it only did it at about 40/45 if I whet faster it stopped so when I got back home had A look and draglink bent again same place

So straitened again and slid it inside another pipe plug welded every 4inch so I'll see if that stops it bending but at the moment it's stopped the shimmying and steering feels more positive less flex in draglink I suppose

another thing is your Landy surspention standard or lifted if it's lited an adjustable panard rod might be needed might not be a bad idea anyway. Bob

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I've been having very similar issues with a 110 puma.

After replacing pretty much everything at the front (steering box, swivels, bushes, track rod and ends), the full suspension all round, I'm trying the ball joint on the rear axle on Monday.

Fingers crossed.

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I confess that although I've read this thread in the past I haven't done so again some have probably forgotten of you've tried another set of wheels or just another pair on the front? I just remembered one set of pukka Wolf wheels I had caused a front end wobble, no matter what combination of swapping them round and after two checks of individual wheel balance they still caused a mild front end shake which only happened within a certain band of road speed and was not caused by potholes or road surface.

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Everything is standard on the suspension, with the exception now of these front dampers.

My tyres were changed back in the summer MOG, wheels were balanced on their fitting obviously - it didn't affect the problem at all. I have no issue with wheel balancing or any resultant wobbles at certain speeds as is symptomatic of unbalanced wheels. My problem only occurs on potholes or damaged sections of road, occurs at all normal speeds (say above 20mph) and is worse the faster I'm going.

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I had the same problem as you described on my old Disco. When I rebuilt my 110 I transferred the axle and steering box, links, etc onto the new chassis but fitted all new bushes, shocks, TREs etc, as well as a strip down/rebuild of the axles with preload set on the bench. The problem persisted!

After a bit of thought the only thing I could imagine was that the tracking wasn't giving enough self-centring effect. I had it set as close to zero as possible at the time. I thought I would try a small amount of toe-in to see if that would improve straightline running over rough stuff and, lo and behold, the problem was eliminated. Gone.

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Finally sorted mine. After replacing all the bushes at the front + full suspension (it was raised 2 inches and I put it back to standard) + steering box + heavy duty damper, I bit the bullet and took it to a local specialist.

It was a combination of, the rear bushes and ball joint being goosed, and more tellingly, the hole where the damper bush attaches to the axle being oval.

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  • 1 year later...

This thread is very old, but for the sake of completeness I should update it.

So the Koni dampers helped for a while, but the problem soon returned. And the dampers seemed no better than the originals after a few months. They got changed last year for a set of take-off genuine ones, no problems with dampers now so they're OK. I also wore the Continentals out after 33k which was disappointing, though not really relevant to this issue. Wobble still persisted.

Today I decided I would finally just up the preload on the swivel housings and see what happened. It would either fix the issue or knacker the bearings, one or the other. So I removed a few shims from each side, nothing scientific just about the same amount, and took it for a test drive. The wobble is gone! Hitting the same rough patch of road at speed there is still a bit of feedback through the steering wheel but compared to before it's a revelation. Car tracks nicely with no wandering or skipping over bumps. No idea what the preload will be now as I didn't bother stripping caliper/hub/stub etc. off so I could measure it, but it will certainly be over the range stated in the workshop manual. Either my two spring balances are dodgy or the LR figures are carp. Either way I'm happy, just hope the bearings will be okay.

Hopefully that has sorted it, so thanks to all for the help. I'll update again if I'm wrong and the problem returns.

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  • 7 years later...

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