Front-end Shimmy Question

I took my Hercules powered 715 for a highway ride this week and as soon as I reached around 45mph my front-end began to shimmy pretty bad. I am guessing I have an out-of-round rim. I have Denman 16" Radials on the truck.

I had a similar problem with a Humvee that I owned a few years back and I had Equal Balance Powder installed and it took care of the problem.

Has anyone else used this product to balance their tires?

Here is their website for reference...

http://www.imiproducts.com/equal/index.aspx

Thanks!
http://www.neatstuff2sell.com/M715_Pictures.php

Tire out of round, tire/wheel assy out of balance, wheel bearings needing adjustment, worn tie rods or other steering problems, alignment off, king pin bearing preload wrong or kingpin bearings worn...there are more reasons for "the death wobble"...

How sure are you that it is the tire balance?

As far as the Equal, people have used it and significantly helped their balance issues...just gotta make sure you are curing the correct problem and not masking the correct one by doing somethging else that affects it enough to make it tolerable for a time while the original one gets worse...

Dont ask how I know...it ended up being very expensive and very embarrassing...

Are they the stock axles? I seem to recall people having a problem with the Chevy 60. .02

Yes, stock axles..

Thought of the simplest issue first because of the the Humvee experience, thanks for the other potential issues.

Change tire pressure, rotate tires, balance tires, king pin shims, tie rod ends, leaf spring bushings, wheel bearing, loose steering box, pitman arm, etc... All of the listed things could cause your "Death Wobble."

When my truck was still wearing 40 year old NDT's, it did it at the same speed and same spot of my drive to work everyday. If I varied my speed on that one bumpy turn, it varied the intensity. But, I could accelerate through it once it started or just stop. I finally figured out which tire had to be at which corner and at what pressure and it almost went away. I got XZL tires and haven't had this problem in almost 2 years. Never have balanced them either.

Are your tires round? Your cold weather and tires that have been sitting could cause flat spots that don't work out until the tires are 20 minutes or so of driving warmed up.

well, I got the shimmy too at exactly 45mph. :( looks like my front tires are leaning in :( guess I wont be driving it to some local shows :( :( :(

The front tires leaning in is the camber. They are supposed to lean in a little. Besides, you can't change the camber.

Now, if they are really leaning in, your king pins or bearings could be worn or loose. Jack up the front axle. Grab the top of a tire and try to pull it toward you and push it away from you. If you feel a "thunk, thunk" or even worse, hear a thunk thunk then have somebody look from the axle side and see where the movement is. Fix that and your problem should be better.

42-46 mph was my wobble speed. With the stock engine, I had to almost stop to get rid of it. With the 396, I learned to mash the gas and power my way through it. That worked about 1/2 the time.

I am going to say it again. Change tires and air pressure if you find nothing really wrong with the parts. Thats all it took to fix mine.

Swap your rims and tires front to back. The out-of-round rim won't be nearly as noticable in the back. I have used Equal in 11x16 Michelins on one piece tubeless rims, and it worked great.

Dave