front end wobble and grinding noise

[shane78]

I have a front end wobble when between 85 - 95, and when breaking above 85.

Also some times when I get above 80km's I get a grinding / bearing rolling noise in front left or front right. This doesn't stop until I get below 10km's. doesn't always happen.            Had bearings checked and greased. Can anyone shed some light.

[Rumcajs]

Patrol's front end wobbles are legendary.

Usual culprits are the rims and tyres but there are other sources like worn out panhard rod bushes, loose radius arms/bushes, king pins bushes/bearing.

 

It is crucial that rims/tyres are balanced properly and care is taken when they're refitted.

 

I have the wobble around 90 km/h but only if/when I rotate wheels around and particular wheel gets fitted to frond end.

 

It is better to visit trucks wheel alignment specialist than the car one (usually a tyre shop) as well.

 

One of the major problem is also the built in one that is the king pin inclination angles and caster angles. There are some specialist which offer assistance in regards to king pin angles and some punters swear by the fix. I'm not so sure.

 

One particular problem which can expose the issue with wobbles is also the 2° road inclinations we have in Oz and no other places have (EU, Japan, US) so solid axles vehicles have major problem with steering straight and keeping from being pulled to the left which puts additional stresses on king pins and steering componentry

 

Truck suspension specialists are well aware of the issue and some have extreme solutions which make you think twice. Like offset king pin bushes, cold bending of axles (trucks) etc.

 

Make sure your wheels tyres are balanced properly first than swap them around to see if the wobble effect changes....

As far as I'm concerned the wobbles are mainly induced by wheels/tyres first.  If you had the wheel bearings checked and correctly set than apart from being flogged out there is nothing else there to cause wobbles.

 

Grating noise could also be coming from brakes/calipers/rotors.

 

Cheers

Edited February 26, 2014 by Rumcajs

[Foo]

9 times out of 10 it will happen when you go bigger tyres, I've never had the problem with the wobbles but those that I speak to that have gone 285+ have all reported some wobbles.

 

Foo

[Reved]

It can also be caused by worn/loose worm gear in steering box . I had to tighten mine as I checked all bushes and bearings and there were still wobbles . once adjusted no more wobbles