steering shimmy/wobble @35-40 mph

[montana_hiboy]

this is more annoying then anything but truck recently developed a mild shimmy/wobble which starts at 35mph and is gone by 40mph and can be felt in the steering wheel, had new BFG 235/85's on stock rims balanced and mounted 9 months ago, drove great last 9 months until this shimmy/wobble just recently started ....front-end is reasonbly tight with minimal play in the steering wheel and it appears all weights are still in place on the rims, any suggestions on what could be the cause/problem? thanks.

[Wes]

rotate the front tire to rear and test drive.

[ezernut9mm]

ah, the "death wobble". the gen 1 lightnings still have the same front suspension as our trucks (twin i beam/radius arms). plus they have wide front tires. you might find some ansewers here:

http://www.nloc.net/vbforum/search.php?searchid=436138

let me know if you can't access the page. there have been many different reasons for speed sensitive front end shimmies. most are addressed here.

[montana_hiboy]

well i put the truck up on the jack today to check out the steering linkage a little closer and come to find out the passenger side tie rod end was shot, i could move it easily 1/4" up/down side/side, so i went ahead and replaced that and took her out on a test drive and suffice it to say the steering shimmy was gone and it tightened up the steering too, eliminating about 1" of play at the steering wheel...still not sure why the shimmy was speed sensitive occuring only between 35-40mph but the new tie rod end eliminated it none the less.

[wt4speed#2]

It's a centrifugal/ geometry thing . I'm sure if you had experimented with a little more you would have picked it back up at a higher speed too such as 65-70 or 70-75 . A lot of the time if it increase to a 10-15 mph increment rather than the aprox. 5 mph increment that you described and you can still drive out of it it's wheel balance.