[droverdave]

So these castor adjustment arms.

They aim to spin the diff housing a litlte to give more castor, this would have an adverse effect on your uni joint angle coming out of the diff yer?

[zukenutter]

nowhere near enough to cause an issue

[Scales]

zukenutter wrote:

nowhere near enough to cause an issue

+1

And i had a 25mm prop spacer in mine for a while on top of that with no dramas. WT case didnt require it anymore though and its still an okay angle.

[Mike57]

Just thought I would share my experience with you. To recap - I have a 2009 Jimny with about 18,000 km on it and 215/75 Hankook mud terrains on 6" rims. I really never had a problem with any significant wobble, just a slight vibrtation around 70kph. I fitted a dampener and that seemed to quieten that down enough not to notice too much.

I swapped my vacuum hubs for sierra manual hubs last month. First time I drove it I found a suignificant wobble from 60kph through to about 75kph. The wobble was not dangerous but quite significant. So just adding some additional weight to the wheels had made a BIG difference. That surprised me a little and I have not yet worked out exactly why.

Anyway I first tried the genuine Suzuki 0.5mm shims in both sides top and bottom and got the same result on both sides - a force of well over 8kg on both wheeels when measured in accordance with the Suzuki service bulletin. I ordered the Big Jimny shim kit thinking I would use the 0.2mm shims. When the kit arrived i noticed that the BJ shims had a slightly smaller outside diameter compared to the Suzuki shims. I put the 0.5mm BJ shims in the passengers side first and got the text book 4.5kg of force to turn the hub. I did the same on the drivers side and got a higher reading so I ended up with 0.5mm in the top and 0.2mm in the bottom. Got the regulation 4.5 kg force on that side as well (actually Suzuki say 4.6kg but I don't think my cheap spring balance was measuring to that level of accuracy). I also noticed that while the passengers side was quite smooth the drivers side was sort of "lumpy". Not sure if that means dirt in one bearing or a problem but since the car is pretty new I did not investigate.

Put it back together and went for a drive. Result was no wobble, back to a very slight vibration which I am thinking might mean the wheels need to be rebalanced. The turning force was slightly higher so I removed the spring from the RTC dampener to turn it into a normal dampener and now the force on the steering wheel is back to where it should be. (Gwagansteve would be proud of that move I am sure!). The other noticeable effect was that I can now feel the road vibrations through the steering wheel. Probably a direct reslt of removing the slop from the king pin bearings.

Overall a pleasing result and now I can avoid the somewhat expensive castor corrected arms. Just need to see how long the king pin bearings last now. I hope Suzuki got it right with the 4.6kg recommended maximum force.

This was not a difficult job by the way. If you have the right tool to break open the tie rod and steering rod joints you could do this in an afternoon. I think it took me 2 hours to reassemble from scratch after I had some practice testing various shims.

[zukenutter]

Nice write up Mike.
I'll add a bit...
My black Jimny had quite a wobble and at one point I had over 10kg after shimming, the steering was very firm feeling but after 6 months the KP bearings were destroyed. BADLY!
My silver Jimny has between 6 and 8kg and has been good like this for almost two years.
The notchy feeling is most likely a sign of the shimming being too tight and the bearing is being crushed, I'd suggest you regularly check this KP for wear.

[Mike57]

Zukenutter

So it seems that you can go above the regulation 4.6kg without destroying the bearings. I will keep that in mind. The drivers side was "lumpy" before I started shimming. I read on the Big Jimny site that this can occur but there was no explanation as to why.

I should have added that you also need a torque wrench for this job if you want to reassemble everything properly but then that goes for any thing you do to any vehicle I guess.

Mike

[PORL]

I'm down to fitting castor bushes and crossing my fingers.
2 inch lift and 235/75 r15, RTC did all the shimming made it heaps better but it feels like neg castor is causing a light hand massage. Above 70kph to about 90kph. Except trying thinner tyres there's nothing more I can do.

[zukenutter]

PORL - If you lift you must caster. Even if you didn't have a wobble it's still necessary to avoid super light steering and vagueness at high speed.

Mike - Any shimming will shorten the life of the bearing, the higher the load, the shorter their life.
If you can do it yourself it's a small cost for large gain.

[Mike57]

I got my front wheels balanced yesterday and they were at 15/15 and 20/20. They both balanced up to 0/0 but the balancer told me that the drivers side front tyre was slightly out of round but not to worry about it as it was very slight. After the balancing the vibration was a little better but not gone. This morning I swapped the suspect tyre for the unused spare and now I have vibration and wobble free driving. Looks like the king pin shims and swapping out the suspect tyre have fixed my problem for the moment.

[Mike57]

Just a quick update, I went back to talk to the guy who balanced my wheels today and it was the rim that was out and not the tyre. Might be a manufacturing fault or it might be damaged. Not sure which but regardless of how slight it was it made a big difference.

[Kayday]

Gday,

Re: too much castor, if I were to fit jimnybits, ORA etc arms (for strength as well as castor) with the addition of castor correction bushes, giving around about 6 degrees (give or take) to my '98 Jim with JB 3" can anyone else see this as being a drama... Or have I missed something here?

[Scales]

youll probably bind the prop shaft at that castor. why would you WANT to do that anyway? just do what we have already mentioned, Shims, Bearings, Poly Bushes on rad arms. Those are the official fixes. steering adjustments can help and dampers are hit n miss.

[Kayday]

Mis-understanding. My mistake.

[Mike57]

Kayday

What lift do you have and when do you experience the wobble, that is when breaking or when approaching 70kph etc.? 6 degrees of correction sounds like too much. Maybe the arms without the corrected bushes might be OK. Be aware that most corrected arms also move the axle forward a little so check what effect that will have if you only have a small lift. However, as with my own experience look at the king pins and any other source of movement first otherwise you are just covering up a problem that will resurface eventually.

Mike

[Kayday]

I have a Jimnybits 3" lift with the correction bushes fitted. 235/75 15 Goodyear DuraTracs. My query is slightly off topic in that I've only ever experienced a very slight shimmy through the wheel at freeway speeds. Definitely not brake shudder. I'm waiting for a steering damper, manual hubs and some other goodies to arrive so I figure when I strip down the front end, I might as well check out the kingpins and bearing whilst I'm there, and have the balance checked at the same time.
I was more interested in a little more feeling through the wheel and improved on-road manners, as with my bigger tyres they seem to wander a little over the road. I agree that 6 degrees of caster is massive, and way more than I'd like. I was confused with my figures. I'm looking to fit some JB or ORA or Snake Racing arms soon and was simply wondering if the extra caster in offset bushes would be excessive in these arms and whether anyone has tried this before.

Cheers.

[Mike57]

OK. You might find as I did that the manual hubs adds significantly to your wheel "vibration". Your approach to shim the king pins at the same time is a good one and will certainly add the feeling to the steering that you are looking for.

[joeblow]

Kayday wrote:

simply wondering if the extra caster in offset bushes would be excessive in these arms and whether anyone has tried this before.

Cheers.

Yes, excessive.

[Scales]

just a heads up guys, dont over-shim your pins... pulled my hubs apart this morning and discovered a buggered kingpin and a destroyed bearing (more on that later).

What is the shim thickness you blokes are set at?

[Mike57]

On the passengers side I used 0.5mm top and bottom. On the drivers side 0.5mm top and 0.2mm bottom. That gave me 4.5kg starting tension to turn the wheels. What thicknesses did you use Scales and did you check the tensions?

[joel]

25 000km, 2'' lift,
a lot of corrugated roads, and still no wobble?
am i lucky?
did notice the steering wheel is turned to the right a bit, i pressume this is due to my lack of caster correction.
but no wobble yet, no wheel shimmy or vibration.
lucky.

[Mike57]

If you still have the stock rims and tyres you are pretty safe then. The wobble seems to appear when you add mass to the front wheels. That can be bigger heavier tyres or rims or in my case the manual hubs.

If the wheels are off the straight ahead position then that could mean a little slop in the panhard bushes or some movement becoming apparent in the king pin bearings or I guess some wear and slop from elsewhere. Might be worth tightening up all the suspension bolts again to 90NM. Get a wheel alignment if it bothers you after everything is tight.

[zukenutter]

My Jim shimmied from day one 0kms. It's just the luck of the draw I guess

[Paulw]

Mines gone (for now) after replacing the front trailing arms rear oem bushes with superpro ones I got a alignment and balance redone(I found a wheel balancing weight on the floor of my garage and suspect I lost a couple over Easter weekend as well) and to my surprise the steering has no more wobble. The mechanic which re did my alignment and balance said that the balance wasn't too bad and also mentioned that one of the bolts on the steering arm was loose which he re-tightened. So what actually fixed it I'm not sure (wheels were also rotated) I did notice a slight improvement after I fitted the new front trailing arm rear bushes before the alignment/balance was redone(I don't think this was what fixed it though).
I've ordered some shims for future use I'm sure they will get used some time in the future.

[gman74]

Mike57
Did you change your wheel barings and kingpin bearings first or go straight to the shims? Mine has recently started with the wobble cheched the basics, now to the next move.

[Mike57]

Hi Gman I see you are up North now. Have not had another Jimny on a club run since our outing in Toolangi.

As my Jimny is relatively young in km terms (about 19,000 km) I went straight to the shims. I did check the wheel bearings and found no play in them. In doing the shims I suspect that one of the king pin bearings on the drivers side may have been damaged (the same side as the damaged rim and most likely in the same incident) That means that if my wobble returns this is what I will replace next. I am starting to conclude that to avoid the wobble you have to have everything spot on so there is no single cause as I think others have stated already.

Mike

[gman74]

Thanks for that. Yeh I cant find any play anywhere so i think I will try shims first as it is easy to try. Yeh we have been on the Gold coast for 6 months now leaving this weekend to head to Mackay for 6 months.

[Scales]

WARNING

I just pulled my drivers side hub apart because I thought I had a busted axle seal (saw leaking oil around scraper seal)
Turns out this is what I found



This is what was left of the lower king pin bearing. note the shagged pin also (was a bitch to get out). Luckily there was only minimal damage to the joint etc, and the bearing race protected it somewhat.

I was able to fit a new bearing and get everything sweet again this weekend. 30 bucks for new pins and 50 bucks on seals n bearings. got away very lucky I think.

This was with .7mm shims on each pin. I have rebuilt again with .5 and all seems to be okay (no shims was undriveable). This is irrelevant though as each car is DIFFERENT! let this be a lesson for you all KEEP an EYE on IT! Learn from my error, If you see the steering wheel start to go to one side, or you detect oil at your scraper-seals... GET ON IT. This could have been catastrophic for me as I was on the hwy not 1 hour before hand... hate to think what would happen if it let go.

Im thinking that some hard-wheeling may have aggrivated it at fraser. But it could just be I over did the shims.

anyway, END RANT. Be careful guys.

[Mike57]

Scales

How many km on the car and what year is it? Were they the original King Pins and bearings?

When you added the shims did you use a spring balance to measure the starting force like the Suzuki service bulletin explains.

Did you feel the steering getting heavy or was it not noticeable?

Sorry about the questions but I am interested in the background. I think this could be useful to know.

Thanks

Mike

[Scales]

Mike57 wrote:

Scales

How many km on the car and what year is it? Were they the original King Pins and bearings?

When you added the shims did you use a spring balance to measure the starting force like the Suzuki service bulletin explains.

Did you feel the steering getting heavy or was it not noticeable?

Sorry about the questions but I am interested in the background. I think this could be useful to know.

Thanks

Mike

I did the shims myself about a year ago replacing all bearings and seals, did the job correctly, used a spring measure as per bulletin. 2003 Jim (in the name block btw.)
Roughly 100k on clock.
Original pins
New bearing required less shims. Better brand I think. Or maybe bulkier pins.

Not noticeable driving, only clue was the steering wheel went off centre in a short period of time. Was oil leaking from the scraper seal before this. I thought that was just a axle seal gone, so I didn't jump on it straight away. Now I know better.

[Mike57]

Scales

Sorry I missed the year in the name block. Sounds like you did everything according to the book. Maybe the bearings are just not up to the sort of off road treatment we dish out to them. Might not be related to the shimming and they might just have a limited life. Might need to do some preventative maintenance and replace them before they fail. Thanks for the answers. Will have to keep an eye on them.

Mike