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Front End Shimmy - 84 Eagle

I'm new here to this group, but I thought I'd run this one by y'all to see what ideas you may come up with.

Been trying to locate an intermittent, violent vibration in the front end of an 84 Eagle wagon. Most of the time, this vehicle runs about as smooth as you would imagine, but it seems that when at highway speed (over 50 mph) hitting a rough road surface will trigger a violent shimmy in the front end. The shimmy continues until the vehicle is slowed and the will disappear for days or weeks on end.

I have not noticed too much excessive play in the steering components, but all parts are rather old. I was looking into other front end problems on this vehicle when I found that one of the Rzeppa joints on the right hand CV half shaft was badly broken. This pat weekend, I removed both half-shafts and test drove again without them. Same result.

I read that too much positive castor can cause quite a shimmy. It's a rather easy adjustment on this vehicle. Do any of suppose it's possible that hitting a piece of bad road can be shoving the lower control arm back far enough to make such a drastic change in the front end geometry? There's nothing there thats loose enough for me to notice play when the front end is lifted off the ground and stationary.

Any other ideas?

Thanks!

Reply to
TomO
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I had a car with bad ball joints exhibit exactly this behavior before. Check them carefully.

Of course, anything loose, worn, out of alignment can cause problems of one kind or another.

Reply to
HLS

So, anyone got some good advice/procedures for carefully checking ball-joints? I'm only aware of the grab-the-wheel-and-shake-like-mad method.

Reply to
TomO

The shake like hell method might take a little more energy than the normal dude can muster if it is to show a worn joint.

I haven't done it in a long time, but as I remember it, I used to jack up the car until I could get a lever under the wheel. I used a steel bar sort of like a jackhammer bit and it was 5-6 feet long.

The lever is put under the tire, in the plane of the tire (extends from under the tire out and in front of the car)and the tire is levered up while you or a henchman watch the movement at the balljoint. Significant movement or looseness is a hint to replace. You can find specs to measure the movement and check your installation against the spec.

Maybe someone else can give a better procedure.

Reply to
Larry Smith

Sounds ball joint to me but what i was wondering is how you test drove it with the both half shafts removed unless this is possibly all wheel drive

Reply to
Buzzbolynne

The '84 Eagle is fulltime rear wheel drive with a Selectrac (tm) system that is essentially a selectable (via vacuum switch) viscous coupling in the transfer case.

I just left it in 2wd and ran on the rear axle.

Reply to
TomO

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