96 Cobra darting around

[cbrown9064]

The ol' snake seems to be wandering a bit lately. On roads where there are depressed wheel tracks the car grabs the tracks and pulls left and right. Sometimes you have to hold counter-steer in to go straight (like making a tractor ride against the furrow). It still grabs ruts on roads with less depressed wheel tracks, just not as bad.



68k on the car, original struts and shocks. I put urethane rack bushings in last year. Wondering if the tie rod ends and ball joints are shot?



The tires are BFG G-Force T/A (KDW) 245/45 ZR17. They have about 5k on them.



Any thoughts?

CB

 

[COBRA90GT]

Does the car track straight ahead on a flat road? IMHO, the problem sounds like it is the road, not the car...

 

[cbrown9064]

On good/better roads it does better, but is always a little "darty" (making up new words). It feels like the front end is tight, just real twitchy and easily follows road irregularities. Over on mustangforums.com, one guy thought it might be a caster issue.

Thoughts?

 

[shoobs99svt]

i agree caster but im pretty sure its not adjustable after it leaves the factory....? is it lowered or have the suspension modded? sometimes large values x-camber (difference from L camber to camber R) can cause it to pull similiar to an improper toe... likely thats only what youre feeling momentarily in these ruts/grooves. take it to an alignment shop and check it. ps when i worked at Sears nonono doing alignments we could do an "alignment-check" at no cost to the customer. they can tell you if the caster/cross camber is out of spec despite being non adjustable.

 

[cbrown9064]

Thanks for the info. I am going to try and get it to the alignment shop this week. Will post the results. The car is stock, never been lowered, etc... 68k on odometer, so don't know if the tie rod ends are shot or what.

 

[thomas91169]

its the tires. I never had this issue with whatever **** came with my car, but with the KDW2's i get this all the time. they will search for the best traction path, if theres a strip of crack spackle in the road, they will pull you onto that strip (cali roads are famous for this), its strange. i always have issues on roads with big rig ruts in them, its a pita to try to fight my way out of them. any slight deviations in the road parallel to your course can be felt.

i know theres a actual term for this, like "Railing" or "hunting" or something. my Nitto's do it on my cobra as well fwiw.

doesnt really bother me. annoying on certain roads, ones i try to avoid.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

I have BFG KDWS and they do not do this at all.

I seriously doubt it is the tires since my BFGs do not do this and he only has 5k miles on them.

It is the alignment. Check tire pressure also. Road condition is a contributing factor but good alignment and proper pressure should minimize the problem.

 

[SVT32VDOHC]

I had the same problem. My steering shaft was bad....(the rubber was shot, and the U-joints were loose.) Not only that, but the firewall bearing, broken, and fell out of the bushing it sits in. This bearing surrounds the shaft and keeps it tight. I put a new shaft and bearing in, and my car drove like never before. It is like brand new. My inner tie rods couldn't even support their own weight. I held them up and they would just fall right down. The new ones were tight and I had to use some force to move them around. My right front strut was also blown out, it had no charge at all.

So, inners, outers, steering shaft and bearing, and 2 new struts and an alignment, and my car was brand new.