Steering wheel vibration

[Brian Kirby]

No.  Driveshaft.  :-)  Problem is on acceleration, so relates to transmission of power.  Probably tail heavy, nose light, van running with front suspension relaxed, and driveshafts running at fairly high angles. 

May not be a serious problem, but joint may need re-packing with grease.  Might be worn CV joint at either end, due to split boot, water penetration, grease drying due to lack of regular use, or just the high wear rate from running continually at high angles.  Should be checked as, if it becomes severe, it could affect ability to steer under some conditions.

[bob b]

I'm thinking of 'opening a book' on the cause of Bedro's problem. Are you going to put us all out of out misery Bedro?

[Brambles]

I shall put ten rusty washers on wheels just need balancing.

I shall also put two milk bottle tops on if that does not work then problem will not be found until new tyres are fitted.

[Guest Tracker]

It can occur that with some tail heavy motorhomes there is not enough weight over the driven wheels to compress the front suspension enough to prevent front wheel patter and it is this same lack of weight over the driven wheels that causes us all so much hassle on slippery surfaces.

 

Short wheelbase coachbuilt vans are worst and the longer wheelbase vans are better as are Alko chassied vans.

 

You could try getting an 18 stone wife to put more weight up front!

 

Or maybe try a drive out with some ballast in t'cab and some weight removed from behind the rear wheels?

[euroserv]

Hello,

 

Joining this one a bit late, but from description of fault I can strongly suspect that you have a CV joint problem, most easily resolved with a replacement shaft these days as less expensive and less hassle. Normally the longer one; ie off side. The only other cause in my experience (of these symptoms) was a worn out top suspension mount. When accelerating, the suspension is unloaded and any slack will appear as vibration but you would normally also have a bit more 'thumping' going on over un-even surfaces.

 

Nick

[bob b]

5/4 on Nick.

[bob b]

Oops.

[Derek Uzzell]

Tracker - 2010-09-28 12:16 PM

 

Derek Uzzell - 2010-09-28 8:26 AM

 

I did have a vibration-during-braking problem with the Hobby, but this disappeared after I had changed the front brake pads to a different make. I never knew if it was the different pads that provided the cure, whether it was a side benefit of the pad-replacement exercise itself, or a miracle due to me praying to St Ferodo.

 

 

Or was it because the wheels went back in a different position - ie rotated one or two wheel nut locations?

 

I can't see why replacing the wheels in a different position should have been significant, as the vibration-under-braking problem clearly had nothing to do with wheel-imbalance or the wheels not being properly centred on the hub.

 

As I said earlier, if the problem described by the original poster occurs only during acceleration, then wheel imbalance can almost certainly be ruled out as a potential cause.

 

Just for the record, there are quite a few ways of balancing vehicle wheel/tyre combinations, some rather extreme (like shaving chunks judiciously off the tyre itself). One method that one might think a logical improvement on the normal technique of sticking, or hammering, weights on to the wheel, involves 'beads' being inserted within the tyre cavity. Apparently, these beads move around within the cavity when the vehicle is moving, continuously countering any out-of-balance tendencies. See the following example:

 

http://www.innovativebalancing.com/index.html

 

I did ask a tyre-fitter (the one who had balanced the Herald's wheels) about this. He told me he was aware of the technique but had never used it, preferring to stay with the tried and trusted traditional methods. He also suggested that it was more appropriate to heavy vehicles (HGV trucks, buses, etc.) rather than the cars and vans he dealt with.

[euroserv]

HI Derek,

 

Up until a few years ago we used to have the front wheels on our 7.5T trucks 'powder balanced' as it was known but I do not know any tyre firms that still do it. It seems that the quality of the tyres has improved so much that now truck wheels are not balanced and unless there are any irregularities in the tyre you don't get any vibration problems. Also because they are speed limited to 56mph nowadays, dynamic imbalances will rarely show themselves unless it's caused by something major.

 

There was one problem with powder balancing in that if you left the vehicle for a while and there were extremes of temperature during that time, the resulting condensation inside the casing would cause the powder to congeal at the bottom and would be reluctant to move to where it was actually needed once the vehicle moved again. For this reason alone I would say that even if you can find someone to do it, it would be unsuitable for campers.

 

Nick

[ips]

Original post states that the vibration is whilst accelerating. I'm no expert but logically I cant see it being anything to do with tyres or brake discs, sounds more like a wheal bearing / hub issue to me. certainly warrants a trip to cab dealer asap in my opinion.