I got the front wheel shimmy!

[Abox5]

Any help would be appreciated. I have a pretty severe shimmy / shake in the front drivers side wheel. I have rotated tires, replaced wheels, repacked and torqued the bearing, replaced tie rod ends, idler arm, upper ball joint, lower control arm and joint and nothing has cured it yet. It comes on at about 55 mph and seems to to smooth out above 65 mph. I can't feel any looseness in the wheel when it's on stands, but at 55 mph it feels like the wheel is falling off.

Oh yeah, I have a 66 convertible with a 289, power steering, and drum brakes.

 

[MitchGT]

alignment?

 

[Abox5]

Hadn't done that yet.

I was going to try that next. Hopefully it will help.

 

[horseballz]

Abox5,
You didn't mention shocks. Fairly cheap and easy. They help control shake and shimmy.
My $.02,
Gene

 

[zookeeper]

I'm assuming you have stock wheels, so I'll rule out excessive positive offset. But I'd be inclined to look at both alignment and shocks as well as really checking for a cracked shock tower. Something has to be moving a lot to give the symptoms you described.

 

[2+2GT]

Is your B crossmember secured properly? Do you have an export brace? It would be a good idea to get one, not the cheap one, as part of the fix.

 

[iskwezm]

crossmember wouldnt cause that.I have used mine in 15 years.If it did cause that, i wouldve had the same issue loooong ago.

Its gonna be movement in the suspension geometry.Have somebody drive next to you and look at your wheels to narrow down if its one wheel or both

 

[alscobra1]

If you have a shimmy at a certain speed in a 10mph range, it's a wheel balance issue. Bring it somewhere else to get the wheels balanced. Alignment will not fix a shimmy. Only other thing would be a driveshaft balance issue or possibly a problem with your rotors.

 

[zookeeper]

I Suppose balance could be it, but it would have to be pretty far off in that one wheel, wouldn't it?

 

[alscobra1]

Nope. Not far at all depending how bad the shimmy is. Depending on what wheels it is, see if they will dynamic balance instead of static balancing them. My guy will use stick on weights on the inside as close up to the wheel face as possible. If they only weight the backside of the wheel(static balance) it won't be as true of a balance. The best balance you will get is the old way with a weight on the inside and outside lip of the wheel. Not too many people want to see a weight on the outside anymore. The better machines will place weights right up to the back of the spokes. Hope this helps.