Loose steering and vibration.

[SilentWolf8293]

Hey. I just got my Eagle a few weeks ago (The Monday after Christmas) and I love her to death. Something I noticed is that the steering seems to be a little loose. I know for a fact it's not the alignment or anything loose in the front end because I just had it looked over at Peerless Tire Co.
Here's what the problem seems to be. When I turn the wheel to the left, it takes between quarter and an eighth  of a turn before the front wheels respond. the same thing happens when I try to turn right. this is all from center and straight. THIS is really more of an annoyance than anything but it might be related to this other problem.

The second thing is that whenever I get up to highway speeds (about 70mph and up [It varies a little]) the steering column begins to shake. Not bad enough that I loose any kind of control over the vehicle but it is enough to worry me that something might get shaken loose.

She's a 1984, four door hatchback. I'm not sure what other details to put in

[casper]

what your experiencing is known as "death wobble". you have something worn out and possibly about to fail in the steering. if both tires seem to not respond with the wheel, first place i would look is the pitman arm. thats the arm that comes off the steering box. get a second person to sit in the car, engine off. wiggle the steering wheel back and forth. look at all of the moving points of the steering system. pitman arm, idler arm, (on the right side attachment to the right frame rail) tie rod ends also. hope you find the issue soon. i had an idler arm go from just fine, to all but falling off in the matter of a month and a half. how? no clue. but it was perfectly fine when i put new tires on, and a short time later, it was about to fall off and let the right tire go where it wanted to.  death wobble like a SOB and scary over 50 mph!!

[IowaEagle]

The Pitman arm is the thing to look at.  Replacing it now is a good idea.

[JayRamb]

My death wobble was caused by the worn out 'shock' linked between the steering linkages. Then I notice a slight vibration in the steering wheel around 60mph. Thought it was tire balance issue. Then it was a worn pitman. Cured everything!

[casper]

i dont care what ANYBODY says, theres no flippin possible way that a steering stabilizer can cause death wobble. IMPOSSIBLE!!! and its a damper. all it does is slows the movement of the steering actions. it can in no possible way cause wobble. it can help to hide it, and it will do a VERY good job at it sometimes. if you have death wobble, a steering part is worn out, and its probably been doing the wobble for a while, and finally wore out the steering stabilizer, so now you finally feel it.

[1985amceagle]

i dont care what ANYBODY says, theres no flippin possible way that a steering stabilizer can cause death wobble. IMPOSSIBLE!!! and its a damper. all it does is slows the movement of the steering actions. it can in no possible way cause wobble. it can help to hide it, and it will do a VERY good job at it sometimes. if you have death wobble, a steering part is worn out, and its probably been doing the wobble for a while, and finally wore out the steering stabilizer, so now you finally feel it.

I agree with what Casper said. You might want to perform a dry park test to figure out what could be worn out and needs to be replaced.

[casper]

get a helper in the car, and wiggle the steering wheel back and forth. dont have to be much. 1/8 of a turn or less. just a little wiggle. then look closely at the pitman arm off the steering box, idler arm on the right side of the frame rail, tie rod ends on both sides. put your hand on the joints and feel them also. then jack each front tire up and grab it on the top and bottom and wiggle to feel if you got a wheel bearing going bad. (they dont ALWAYS make noise when they are loose. most of the time, but not always.) anything that will allow your tires to move any will cause the wobble.

[IowaEagle]

I agree, the damper is a casualty of an older issue.  My damper is fine and I notice my wobble beginning in enough time to replace the pitman arm and lower ball joints.

[1985amceagle]

get a helper in the car, and wiggle the steering wheel back and forth. dont have to be much. 1/8 of a turn or less. just a little wiggle. then look closely at the pitman arm off the steering box, idler arm on the right side of the frame rail, tie rod ends on both sides. put your hand on the joints and feel them also. then jack each front tire up and grab it on the top and bottom and wiggle to feel if you got a wheel bearing going bad. (they dont ALWAYS make noise when they are loose. most of the time, but not always.) anything that will allow your tires to move any will cause the wobble.

I figured you would be able to explain that maneuver better than I could.

[JayRamb]

i dont care what ANYBODY says, theres no flippin possible way that a steering stabilizer can cause death wobble. IMPOSSIBLE!!! and its a damper. all it does is slows the movement of the steering actions. it can in no possible way cause wobble. it can help to hide it, and it will do a VERY good job at it sometimes. if you have death wobble, a steering part is worn out, and its probably been doing the wobble for a while, and finally wore out the steering stabilizer, so now you finally feel it.

It's physics and viscosity of fluid with pressure...Well don't judge what you don't know. My death wobble was caused by the stabilizer. It was shot. Leaking and you could pull apart with two fingers.  It ended with that. Nothing else was replaced n the suspension. Been five years of driving 12K miles and no death wobble. So there is a FLIPPIN way.

It's JUST like a shimmy dampener on a nose wheel of a small aircraft (a plane). If the fluid leaks out of a dampener/shock, the fluid is viscosity...oil, pressure, and it dampens the motion. When the fluid leaks out, you have a shaft connected to a piston inside of a tube rattles around. Thus, a worn dampener can cause wobble.

Pretty FLIPPIN simple logic.

[casper]

the damper on a nose wheel of a plane acts because a nose wheel is a caster. those can have that happen. the damper on any vehicle has no effect on steering. and no, a steering damper is not pressurized like a shock. they are filled with fluid, and have a valve on the end of the rod. i have driven honeybadger with no sabilizer, and with its worn out stabilizer. it has no possible input on steering.

[Mernsy]

This may help clear this issue up.

"QUOTE"
For the record, IF you have your suspension/steering dial in correctly, a steering stabilizer isn’t really needed at all.  While one might act as a bandaid and help to hide or mask wandering or flighty steering or even help reduce death wobble, IT DOES NOT AND WILL NOT FIX ANYTHING. 
"UNQUOTE"

http://project-jk.com/jeep-jk-tech/myths-about-steering-stabilizers

[1985amceagle]

Hope this helps as well. Taken from Automotive Chassis Systems, James D. Halderman

Steering dampener - A shock absorber installed on the steering linkage to reduce road shock from being transferred to the steering wheel.

Many light trucks, vans, and some luxury cars use a steering dampener attached to the linkage. A steering dampener is similar  to a shock absorber, and it absorbs and dampens  sudden motions in the steering linkage.

[Mernsy]

My death wobble was caused by the stabilizer.

While one might act as a bandaid and help to hide or mask wandering or flighty steering or even help reduce death wobble, IT DOES NOT AND WILL NOT FIX ANYTHING. 

You really should have your front end looked at.  It's obvious that the stabilizer doesn't cause "death wobble". You could be driving a time bomb.

[captspillane]

You're all a little wrong. The fact is that it is possible to have normal wear on components and have each individual piece not by itself in need of immediate replacement but the combined vibrations hit resonance with each other, causing a major change in the severity of vibration, measured in amplitude.

When a trombone hits resonance you hear one note much louder than all the others, thus creating music. All the other frequencies are always present but only one, as determined by length of tube, will attenuate and resonate louder than all the others combined. The graph shows a huge spike that multiplies the intensity many times greater than what it would be otherwise. Lots of little things sometimes work together and create one big thing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resonance

The front of an Eagle has a rotating mechanism, the engine, bolted to a different rotating mechanism, the transmission, also bolted to a third mechanism, the front axle. They are unusually susceptible to resonance and I've seen some crazy amount of harmonic motion from mine that immediately went away as soon as the steering dampner was replaced.

By all means it could be an unsafe condition ready to break and kill you, so act accordingly and start replacing stuff and giving your steering very close scrutiny.

If he was to replace all of his components with new stuff it might go away just because resonance can't happen if you take away the contributing vibrations. Ideally nothing should be vibrating. Ideally your tires are balanced, your alignment freshly checked, and so forth. You should be able to disconnect the steering stabilizer and see no change anywhere. It could be hiding a Pitman arm or other major component about to fail and it could be a dangerous band aid to ignore.

It is possible, however, that you won't find anything majorly wrong and replacing stuff doesn't make it go away except for the steering stabilizer. It is possible that lack of steering stabilizer will cause vibrations to resonate with each, thus causing damage to components. The plates in my battery actually broke free from how violent the perfectly periodic motion my Eagle sedan had.  It's possible that ignoring the condition of your steering stabilizer will speed up the aging process and force you to replace parts earlier than you would have otherwise had to.

I have two ABET accredited BE degrees that spent a considerable amount of time discussing harmonic motion in cars and the differential calculations of periodic motion in both mechanical systems and electrical systems. We specifically studied Ralph Nader's argument that poor damping rates on the shocks caused the death of a young man who drove a steady speed across evenly spaced road bumps, thus causing a resonant standing wave and loss of control in a vehicle in otherwise factory original condition. It's possible.

[captspillane]

I'm a Naval Architect by degree. When they build a ship they attach sensors to the engine, usually a direct drive slow speed diesel in most modern construction, and they record the frequencies of the engine. Every single rotating assembly, no matter how big or small, will have a frequency of vibration. Shipyards take great care in recording these and making sure they do not resonate with each other.

Every ship, every last one of them, has a zone of RPMs that you don't operate in. On one ship I was on I think it was 40 RPM on the two story tall massive slow speed direct drive diesel engine. At that speed the resonance would shake your coffee cup off the table and make your jaw chatter. You basically ran it less than that speed or more than that speed, never right at it. When you needed to speed it up you accelerated the engine through the rough spot as fast as you could. The throwback of the steam age is to call them "bells" but basically you have a set of evenly spaced common RPM values you type in for the motor or expect the engine crew to know how to maintain and the harmonic motion values are posted on a clipboard on the bridge warning you not to operate at that engine speed.

That's harmonic resonance. I firmly believe it is sound advice to replace the steering stabilizer early and often on your Eagle because the interaction of the axle being bolted directly to the engine will cause early wear to your components otherwise. I have seen Eagles with mediocre worn tires and worn parts rely on the stabilizer to stay road worthy. I could care less about Spirits or solid axles like XJ's and TJs, those don't matter much at all. It's just the Eagles that have an axle bolted directly to an Engine.

[JayRamb]

I'm a Naval Architect by degree. When they build a ship they attach sensors to the engine, usually a direct drive slow speed diesel in most modern construction, and they record the frequencies of the engine. Every single rotating assembly, no matter how big or small, will have a frequency of vibration. Shipyards take great care in recording these and making sure they do not resonate with each other.

Every ship, every last one of them, has a zone of RPMs that you don't operate in. On one ship I was on I think it was 40 RPM on the two story tall massive slow speed direct drive diesel engine. At that speed the resonance would shake your coffee cup off the table and make your jaw chatter. You basically ran it less than that speed or more than that speed, never right at it. When you needed to speed it up you accelerated the engine through the rough spot as fast as you could. The throwback of the steam age is to call them "bells" but basically you have a set of evenly spaced common RPM values you type in for the motor or expect the engine crew to know how to maintain and the harmonic motion values are posted on a clipboard on the bridge warning you not to operate at that engine speed.

That's harmonic resonance. I firmly believe it is sound advice to replace the steering stabilizer early and often on your Eagle because the interaction of the axle being bolted directly to the engine will cause early wear to your components otherwise. I have seen Eagles with mediocre worn tires and worn parts rely on the stabilizer to stay road worthy. I could care less about Spirits or solid axles like XJ's and TJs, those don't matter much at all. It's just the Eagles that have an axle bolted directly to an Engine.

EXACTLY!

[captspillane]

I've had four different Eagles develop a odd shake around 60 mph and then again around 85 mph. They would drive perfectly smooth at 50 mph or 75 mph or even 90 mph. The shake was very precise in frequency and very consistant in the speed it would start and then stop. Those shakes would be completely solved by replacing the steering stabilizer.

I remember being very scared of it when I was in high school. Then I went to college and drove ships. In that professional environment everyone expects vehicles to have resonance problems at precise engine speeds. It's normal.

I've also driven Eagles without any stabilizer installed at all with no problems. I drove my Spirit without one. I've never had a stickshift Eagle do it to me, only automatic 258s. I've seen many other people post the same symptoms but just for Eagles. I don't bother posting replies anymore because it just leads to arguments and name calling.

When a Pitman arm or balljoint goes it sucks all the time, any speed. It's not a harmonic motion, it's obvious slop and impending doom.

When a wheel balance weight falls off, it's a constant and annoying shake that gets worse as you go faster.

[Mernsy]

I've seen many other people post the same symptoms but just for Eagles.

When a Pitman arm or balljoint goes it sucks all the time, any speed.

My buddy's '05 TJ would go into the death wobble at roughly 35 mph on rough roads. He replaced the stabilizer to no effect. When the bad ball joint was replaced the death wobble went away.

You know, I'm not sure what you guys are trying to prove with all the info about ships and planes. My Eagle is a car, it doesn't fly or swim.
I'll stick with the automotive technician's take on this issue. Thanks Casper.

[captspillane]

By all means it could be an unsafe condition ready to break and kill you, so act accordingly and start replacing stuff and giving your steering very close scrutiny.

It's possible that ignoring the condition of your steering stabilizer will speed up the aging process and force you to replace parts earlier than you would have otherwise had to.

I'm just saying that you should assume the worst and give your car due attention and concern. I'm also saying that the steering stabilizer is an important component on an Eagle worth maintaining with the same diligence as front shocks, tires, and so forth.

It is bad advice to go as far as to tell people the steering stabilizer is worthless. Until then I was more than happy to avoid the typical forum disagreement where everyone pulls out their credentials and compares the size of what's in their pocket.

[1985amceagle]

By all means it could be an unsafe condition ready to break and kill you, so act accordingly and start replacing stuff and giving your steering very close scrutiny.

It's possible that ignoring the condition of your steering stabilizer will speed up the aging process and force you to replace parts earlier than you would have otherwise had to.

I'm just saying that you should assume the worst and give your car due attention and concern. I'm also saying that the steering stabilizer is an important component on an Eagle worth maintaining with the same diligence as front shocks, tires, and so forth.

It is bad advice to go as far as to tell people the steering stabilizer is worthless. Until then I was more than happy to avoid the typical forum disagreement where everyone pulls out their credentials and compares the size of what's in their pocket.

I understand that, the steering setup on the eagle was determined to need it, or the manufacturer wouldn't have put it in. As far as the steering stabilizer being the sole cause of death wobble, I find impossible. The steering stabilizer is there to take the shock out when you hit something on the road, so it isn't as likely to transfer the shock to the steering wheel. If you have death wobble, it's a sign that something is wore out. Stuff like tie rod ends, and ball joints are a service item

[carnuck]

You don't know what scary is till you experience Comanche death wobble for teh first time SUDDENLY at 75 mph on a 20% downhill grade while a semi is passing you on one side and an idiot Russian towing a overloaded boat and trailer easily doing over 100 passes you on the shoulder. In the meantime, your canopy clamps have come loose and only one is keeping it from blowing off with 2 of your children!

[SilentWolf8293]

Much as I would love to just start replacing parts willy-nilly I (unfortunately) work a minimum wage job less than 20 hours a week. I don't make enough money and I don't really have access to a reliable parts dealer.

[casper]

thats why its important to find WHATS wrong, and fix that first. the parts arent expensive, or hard to change. if its a pitman or idler arm, you can change them out and not worry about alignment. if its tie rod end, get it as close as you can, and  then you have to go have it aligned. thats another $60 or so bucks. and they will probably tell you other parts that are worn out, or getting close to needing replaced, so they cant get it perfect. (we get told that all the time when we send rigs to the alignment shop after replacing steering/suspension parts.)