Its all gone a bit wobbly!!

[SteveW]

I'm back again for some more information and as usual any help would be very much appreciated.

When I bought my Jimny I noticed there was a slight vibration/wobble sometimes between about 30 and 60 mph but it wasn't to bad and I had no problem living with it so it sort of went to the back of my mind.

I have now had a set of castor correction front radius arms fitted to sort out the fact that its lifted and get the axle back to the right angle.

Driving it home from the garage last night after the arms were fitted the wobble came back and it did so with avengence! Its probably worse at about 35mph now. I'm pretty sure I've read about this being a common problem with Jimnys so if anyones had the problem or knows the source I would appreciate knowing how to stop it. I'm going to get the wheels tracked and balanced in the hope that this will help but are there any other things I should check?

Steve.

[glaggs]

My suggestion would be - first check everything has been properly tightened up. Then the symtom of wheel wobble around 35-40mph on a Jimny usualy means king pin bearings. Mines doing it at the moment. Checked the king pin bearings and they were seized with mud n rust. Done a temp clean up while I can afford some new ones - which improved the ride slightly - but not totally. I think the bearings are about £25+vat each from Suzuki. I'm going to try a bearing factors first.

[SteveW]

Cheers glaggs,

I'll check on that, I'm going to try the tracking and balancing first though just incase thats not helping things.

Steve.

[glaggs]

OK Steve. Easiest way to check King pins is get both front wheels off the ground, diconnect the stearing arm and the drag link and then turn each wheel from lock to lock by hand. If the feel 'notchy' or offer too much resistance then its king pins. Also if you hold the wheel at the top and bottom and get movement similar to faulty bearing but don't get any play when you repeat the test while holding the wheel at each side it also points to king pins. Its hard to do the first test with the links still attached.

Do you have a steering damper fitted? 'cos if youve done a caster correction mod you shouldn't need it.

Other things to check - track rod end joints and wheel bearings. Also break discs

[SteveW]

Cheers, I'm gonna try to get time this weekend to have a look at those things.

Steve.

[mlines]

Go careful when buying non-Suzuki King Pin bearings. I understand that although they are designated as 30302 which is standard across the Suzuki range the Jimny ones are 30302JR which are a slightly different size.

Martin

[glaggs]

Hi Martin - bearing sizes are Engineering stand, I think you'll find that the letters refer to the fasct that Suzuki ones come with a sealed? edge. A decent bearing stockist will confirm this, though I guess may not stock the sealed version. As the seal doesn't seem to work on jimny's used regularly off road then as long as you check/clean/grease them regularly there will be littler or no difference in performance.

[mlines]

I was just relaying what was discussed on www.jimny.se where 30302 bearing would not tighten fully but 30302JR ones apparently do. Its not something I have done, but will be soon.

Here they are apparently slightly different sizes from the same supplier - but it could just be a difference in manufacturer description and its only 0.05 mm but the second ones are "J2"

http://simplybearings.co.uk/shop/p45077/30302+Taper+Roller+Bearings+15x42x14.3mm/product_info.html?osCsid=17bf538560e1677304eaec4287d93e65

http://simplybearings.co.uk/shop/p14771/SKF+30302J2+Metric+Single+Row+Taper+Roller+Bearing+15x42x14.25mm/product_info.html?osCsid=17bf538560e1677304eaec4287d93e65

Looking at the Koyo brochure "J" means increased accuracy in manfacture

Martin

[diesel vit]

Steve can I ask you what make of  correction arms and panhard rods you used and did you find out on how to set them up?

Robert

[glaggs]

Looking on the net JR mean manufactured to a recognised std and tolerence - all the sites I found selling the only listed 30302JR's. But the 30302 part definately denotes the size. Prices vary from £6 ish to £14.

[SteveW]

Robert

The panhard rods are heavy duty adjustables from KAP, they were fitted on the vehicle when I bought it. The correction rods are from Rhino Rays, decided to go with the full new arms over just replacement bushes.

As for setting them up, no I didn't really get anywhere with that. I think I'm going to presume that my original thought was correct in the fact that if I sit the jeep on flat ground and disconnect the panhard rod then reconnect them with no load on them it should be correct.

Steve.

[daveford]

Just had my offside kingpin bearings and grease seal done at K.A.P. he uses timken bearings and its cured my steering wobble as well as it now feels better than it ever has done with the handling. Took him fourty minutes to do, cost £156 inc vat with parts