Shaking at 60 mph

First off, new rims & tires (subsequently I'm now broke, but the B looks good....) & all balanced Toe-in adjusted for.

Going through the gears is fine, but when I get to approx 60mph the car starts wobbling - not badly, just know its there. Haven't gone any higher than 60mph. The steering wheel is fine - no problems when driving or braking, suggesting that the front is OK. Its hard to pin point it as it has to be the back.

The only part I didn't overhaul (with the exception of the tranny) was the back axle. Would a worn bearing / shim or anything else in the axle cause this ? No 'extra' noises that I heard, so calling on the vast experiance & knowledge of you guys for any advice.

Thanks

Mark

New rims...check that all the wheel lugs are tight, Just a thought, I had after market lugs on an S10 I had and they worked loose on one wheel. Started as a slight shake, I caught it before the rim broke away.
You also might have a bad tire or bad balancing.

They're knockoffs.... Checked them already & had it in another car about a month ago - garage forgot to do them up. Different kind of shake...

Unless the shop knew how to balance your wire wheels, they could still be the culprit. Some shops don't balance wires correctly. If the vibration hits around 60, can you drive out of it at a higher speed? You might be a candidate for wheel balancing on the car.

If this started with the new wheels and tires it pretty much points to one of them as the culprit. Raise each wheel off of the ground and watch the tire as it rotates. Look for a wobble to left and right as well as up and down. This will eliminate the wheels from the equation if they show up true. Next, move the rear wheels and tires to the front and test drive. If it clears up then one of the rear tires is at fault. RAY

Bad balance job OR tires may not be true. Shops used to offer tire truing, shaving the high spots off the tread. Always worked for me. That service is hard to find. Too bad because it worked.

Hold a screw driver or something similar with the end just touching the sidewall and then the center of the tread steadily on a concrete block or jack stand while the tire is rotated slowly. Observe the lateral and radial run-out for a faulty (lumpy) tire.

Do the same thing at the edges of the rims.

It might be easier to swap the rear wheels to the front to do this of you aren't comfortable having the car running in gear while sitting on stands.

No guesses here, I try to deal only in facts, but it could be that one of the rims got whacked out of true if they used a pneumatic tire changer to do thier work.

It is alson not terribly unusual to get a tire that has a flat spot or heavey area from the factory that can't be detected by any other means.

Jack

There's also the possibility that it's driveshaft balance or u-joints.

If the vibration goes away at higher speeds, its the tires. Tires vibrate in specific rpm ranges. If it gets worse at higher speeds, its driveline related such as U-joints.

The knock-offs need to be jigged from the outside radius of the outside edge of the wheel, where the knock-off seats. If they jigged it internally, the wheel probably isn't properly balanced. This is where you would supply them a spare, junk, knockoff that can be center-drilled to fit their machine.

Essentially, you need an internal cone on the inside of the wheel, and an external cone on the outside of the wheel to hold it on the balancer. NOT 2 internal cones as most shops would use.

Most tire places had the cones at one time. They come with the machine however most of the employees are too young to have ever used them.

At a new NTB near us the manager(old guy) found the cones in the trash box. He knew what they were for.

My car is good for 90 now. That is where i run out of guts in a 46 year old car.

I fought that vibration for years with a box of parts. It was the old tires that were probably never correctly balanced,

If your wheels are Daytons you can balance them with the cone internally. These wheels are machined to much higher tolerances than was available when these cars were new. Not so sure about the made in India Dunlop knockoffs. RAY

I had a similar problem with high speed vibration. Wheels and tires did not solve the problem. New front shocks made the difference. If you have leaking or bad front shocks it can cause the problem.

I agree, i have spoken to several with same issue as this, and none had any repairs done to the shock system. once done problem went away.

There is a John Twist video regarding lever shocks where he nonchalantly mentions that at about 60-65 if your car "shakes" make sure your lever shocks are topped off and working correctly. I had a shake at this same speed, and after checking the tires, doing the "are they all rotating straight" check, finally went onto the shocks to discover that they BOTH needed attention. I purchased some rebuilts and shake was gone.

tob

I was gong to mention the Twist video too. I had a similar problem with my GT. It turns out I have a leaky front shock and I have to make sure to add fluid regularly until I can replace the pair.

You can do a basic test by pushing on the front fender on each side and observing the rebound. If it bounces after you let go then you have a shock issue.

Swap the tires front to back see if it changes characteristics.

There is also the remote possibility that you have dried mud in the vanes of one of your brake discs.

I don't start shaking until about 80 in mine! Feels like it's gonna take off back to England

Hey! How do these old threads get resurrected anyway? Interesting how it happens.
This one's over two years old.

Harry digs them out by using the search function because he needs an answer and finds what worked before maybe didn't this time and it gets a new go-round.

Tony,

Thanks, I was already aware of Worldwide, his price is defintely hard to beat. Madison is close enough to me that I could drive up. Assuming I replace them sometime this Summer (which is the plan) I will probably pull the old ones, through them in the bags on my Goldwing and ride up to Madison to swap them.

Don't know about wire wheels, but rostyles are almost never completely balanceable, I've found. I replaced mine with Minator look-alikes and added a urethane air dam, both of which settled my car down a good deal. I used to have front end shaking and wheel balancing never worked. Don't know much about wire wheels, but these cars do seem to have this front end shaking problem a lot, most likely due to the age of the cars and the speeds we drive them. Things wear a little here and there.