front end vibration

[FUNFER2]

I'm sure all that is posted will help. The next things I will try is the Hunter (If I can find one) ? and the Flamming River "Rag joint" Some may be from the different wheel manufactures. My first wheels were the Torque Thrust D wheels, shake was at 60 mph now with the Team III's it's 75 mph.

May main point here is to talk about "Harmonic Vibrations" although I don't know much about the subject. A friend of mine is a ASE certified mechanic working on brand new, most makes & models. He has felt vibrations on most vehicials including some high end cars, Cadillacs, BMW's ect..... He believes that all, cars have them, it just depends on how bad they are and how well the the car company works with this problem. Cadillac adds weights to the frame where the vibrations are the worst. My mothers brand new PT Cruiser has vibrations at 65 mph. I also assume...... even Ferrari, Porscha & the like have them also but I'm sure they deal better with the situation ? My mechanic friend says there is a tool/device, that checks for these harmonic vibrations, one that can be hand held by a passenger while the car is driven to find out just how much & where the vibration frequency's are. I will try to find out more on this subject.

Has anyone else heard of these's " harmonic vibrations"

[Snak Iyz]

Thanks for the 'find-a-Hunter" link. Found one 5 miles from my house. Also, thanks for the retreader tip....

Quick question: When I go in, am I just asking for the balance and spin (regular and road course) or is there anything more specific?

Thanks for continued help on clarifying this.

[Rogers]

You will notice a difference after you have been balanced on the Hunter machine....but the problem will still exist...I think we need to contact Flaming River and get a part #. This should take care of all these tire shaving/harmonic distortion/I don't feel safe at any speed shimmy problems....what do you guys think????

[Rick Parker]

I don't want to hijack your thread but this is a pretty common occurance in many of the different makes.
http://www.borgeson.com/VibrationDamp.htm
Here is a real nice item that can be incorporated into most steering shafts discreetly. I am going to be using one of these shortly, has anyone else? Thoughts.........???
I have often wondered if the fact that many of these cars utilize
Mustang II spindles with wheels that have a lot of negative offset pushing the wheel much farther away from an imaginary line through the upper & lower ball joints as it intersects the ground. The original width of Mustang II wheels was about 5" with out any negative offset. This has something to do with scrub radius, but I am not sure if it actually impacts the balance issue or is restricted strictly to turn in, cornering and eventual tire wear????? Opinions???? Thoughts???????


Rick

[rdorman]

Talk to the tech when you go in there. Like anything used by a human, the outcome is larger part of the person using it. If they are not willing to take the time to answer your questions, will they be willing to take the time to do the job right?

Unique has a new piece for a steering 'isolator'. It replaces one of the u-joint in the 'column' assembly. Who ever makes it should be able to help for most if not all of us.

DO NOT USE a damper (like a shock) on the rack if you can avoid it.

Rick

[FUNFER2]

I do agree with using a vibration "dampner" or "isolator" and will install one on my cobra but, I want to say it will mostly help in the steering wheel shake & not fully address the problem. I know that I feel the shake thru out the whole car, not just the wheel. My point is, beware, the dampner is not a solve all. I'll be ordering mine soon.

[John Poling]

Kevin,
I agree with your standpoint. I am intending on eliminating all the vibrations first then maybe add the joint just to eliminate the harshness in the wheel.

My problem though is only felt in the steering wheel. When you are the passenger you don't feel much of anything and only notice an issue if you look at the steering wheel vibrating back and forth.

I did find the Borgeson joint mentioned above for $63 on line by just searching on the name "Borgeson" on Google. It appears they are available in 3 versions, raw steel, non-polished stainless steel and polished stainless steel. I think the $63 was for the non-polished stainless one although I'm not positive.

John

[uncltodd]

At least you didn't have a wheel fall off right in front of a college at lunch break.

Wanna buy a set of wheels and tires with less than 100 miles?

UT

[C-man610]

I believe in correcting the problem not masking it. Rag joints and isolators may be proper but it appears to sound like BFG Goodwich T/A Radials are the bad guys.

If the BFG T/A radial market is the hi-performance sports cars etc, why isn't BFG giving us a true tire??

Is there another brand that runs truer??

[decooney]

After chasing this issue around on three different cars, over a period of years, the answer was tires in all three cases. Don't want to point fingers at certain well-known brands, but some of them are bad and others are just horribly bad, out of round, off-center, etc... It seems to really show up on Cobras. Good Luck.

[Dens]

Hey BDR owners

Call Reg, He will send you a plastic spacer to center the tire on the hubs. My car's shaking problem seemed to come and go, was driving me nuts. I had the tires balanced 3 or 4 times on the front only as I was feeling and seeing shake in the steering wheel. I called Reg and ask him if he could help. What a difference! No shake. I have 17" Nittos.

[brainbugnj]

Does this apply to 15's as well? I am still fighting a front end problem as well.....

steve

[Dens]

Steve

I don't why not. The spacer works to center the tire on the hub, the size of the tire should not matter. I added the tire size on my last entry just for info.

Brad

[Rogers]

Brains......Reg sent me the spacers...I have 15's......was experiencing a shake at 45-55 then at 70 on up. The spacers took care of the slower speed shake but not the high speed one. Am going to have tires checked for "out of round" this Thursday...also will check the wheels....I have allready had the Hunter 9700 treatment....didn't work. Nuke 427 has BFG 16's....you can go 140 with absolutely no shake anywhere...all he has done is the Hunter Balance. I'll let you know the results by this weekend.....

[C-man610]

Vibration in the 60mph range - found out with the Hunter 9700 balance system will reduce further 60 mph vibraton if you apply clip on weights to the inside of the rim rather than tape on weights to inside of wheel

Another obvious question - have you inspected your rims closely - any pot holes lately????

[Rogers]

Had 2 new 15" T/A's installed on the front...no vibration at any speed. Only 1500 miles on old pair....went to Goodrich national dealer...got 2 new for nothing!

[Boudy]

Rogers: Glad to hear you got that fixed. The T/A's are just low-end budget tires.

Boudy

[Rogers]

Boud.....the tire smurf bent the wheel removing the first tire....this is after I informed him to be extra careful with the aluminum rims....we (cobra owners) unfortunately have put ourselves in a class that have much higher expectations than the regular tire smurf. Glad your getting that checkbook back in balance...you are probably suffering from "lack of Rogers" syndrome!

[Boudy]

Yea, you better drop me a line just to make sure I don't go into Rogers withdraws. And as far as third party service goes, I have no comment.

Boudy

[Blittleton]

I have a little problem with my bfgoodrich tires on my cobra and on my truck. Does everyone that is having these problems have bfg's and are they the 15" wheels? Does anyone have the 17" wheels and is having the same problem? I had to replace 2 tires on my truck before the problem almost went away. I think that the bfg's are hard to balance or that they can't be balanced. Has anyone looked in this area? Thanks