Front end shimmy

Good to hear you got it figured out and taken care of !

Thanks to all of you that responded!
I went to a big tire store this am, Boulvard Truck Service in Daytona Beach, Fl.
They did a "road force balance" & it took care of the shimmy.

Bump
Well did you get it fixed/figured out ?

CharlesinGA wrote:

OFDPOS wrote:
Did this just start or started AFTER the front shock replacement , or After the alignment ?
Was the shocks and Alignment done at the same time ?

Have the tires check for balance sometimes its takes more than just the standard wheel balance. The technical name escapes me right now.

Had the tires rotated and balanced on our Toyota FJ,, around town or under 50 mph didn't notice a thing.
Freeway speeds shimmy came in at 60 mph and seemed to disappear at 70 mph.
They did the other wheel balance and now the shimmy is gone.

Reason why I ask if this started after the shocks were replaced , who did them ? If done at a shop ? Maybe a wheel weight was knocked off and wasn't noticed ?

Road Force Balance............

That's the term !

OFDPOS wrote:
Did this just start or started AFTER the front shock replacement , or After the alignment ?
Was the shocks and Alignment done at the same time ?

Have the tires check for balance sometimes its takes more than just the standard wheel balance. The technical name escapes me right now.

Had the tires rotated and balanced on our Toyota FJ,, around town or under 50 mph didn't notice a thing.
Freeway speeds shimmy came in at 60 mph and seemed to disappear at 70 mph.
They did the other wheel balance and now the shimmy is gone.

Reason why I ask if this started after the shocks were replaced , who did them ? If done at a shop ? Maybe a wheel weight was knocked off and wasn't noticed ?

Road Force Balance............

Did this just start or started AFTER the front shock replacement , or After the alignment ?
Was the shocks and Alignment done at the same time ?

Have the tires check for balance sometimes its takes more than just the standard wheel balance. The technical name escapes me right now.

Had the tires rotated and balanced on our Toyota FJ,, around town or under 50 mph didn't notice a thing.
Freeway speeds shimmy came in at 60 mph and seemed to disappear at 70 mph.
They did the other wheel balance and now the shimmy is gone.

Reason why I ask if this started after the shocks were replaced , who did them ? If done at a shop ? Maybe a wheel weight was knocked off and wasn't noticed ?

If you can do it, raise each tire independently (one at a time) and spin the tire. Watch the threads go by as it spins. It could be your tires have worn unevenly. Look for chaffing or cupping on the threads.

While each tire is up in the air, sit on your rump with the tire in between your legs and grab hold of the tire on the sides and try to move it side-to-side.

Any clunking? If so, you likely have a bad tie rod or I should say steering link.

Do the same with your hands up and down on the tire and do the same.

Any clunking in that direction would be a bad ball joint.

I think it was earlier years, but I remember something about loose idler arm brackets.

My first impression would be tire balance too, I would check that first,also the alignment shop should have checked all the front end parts. One thing that the Chevy Chassis has over the Fords is that they don't have as much wear problems on these parts.

Mine was aligned at 95000 miles and the Truck Mechanic that specializes in heavy duty truck alignment checked all of the parts in the front end and said that there was very little wear and I was good to go,unlike the ones he sees on RVs with Fords Chassis.

The other thing you might check is outlined in This post it is for earlier years but the problem was found in later years also. If these parts are loose they may cause a shimmy.

My first thought is wheel balance. After an alignment the tech would have noticed or should have noticed any worn front end parts. At only a certain speed points in that direction.