Tons of vibration in steering wheel?

[Shmoov69]

is the vibration the "death wobble" or more like a tire out of balance? My 06 F250 had a horrible death wobble on the highway that moved the steering wheel back and forth insanely fast about 30* or so if you were pulling a trailer. I ended up putting a bigger stabilizer shock on it and it "masked" it enough to be safe again. It would only do it if there was an empty trailer on the back. Only thing I could think of is that it put "just enough" weight to make the front at the right point to show the design flaw.
Maybe even unhook the stabilizer to see if it makes it worse?

[JpRngr]

Jack up one front wheel at a time and shake the wheel back and forth at 3 and 9 o'clock and at 12 and 6 o'clock. Look and feel for excess play in your steering and suspension. Sometimes you even have to put a long pry bar under the tire and lift up and down to check for play in the ball joints.

Corey

[Brewtal66]

Originally Posted by BMR Sales

How are the tires? Motorhome Tires will gain flatspots as they sit so much

Tires are new...all of them. I just put those on about 2 months ago.

Originally Posted by Shmoov69

is the vibration the "death wobble" or more like a tire out of balance? My 06 F250 had a horrible death wobble on the highway that moved the steering wheel back and forth insanely fast about 30* or so if you were pulling a trailer. I ended up putting a bigger stabilizer shock on it and it "masked" it enough to be safe again. It would only do it if there was an empty trailer on the back. Only thing I could think of is that it put "just enough" weight to make the front at the right point to show the design flaw.
Maybe even unhook the stabilizer to see if it makes it worse?

I don't think so since it has nothing to do with speed, like an out of balance tire. This is is only when I hit a bump or crack in the road, does it get the vibration. Definitely not a wobble.

I did replace that stabilizer shock and it made an improvement, about 50% better. Before that it was unbearable, now it's just annoying lol

Originally Posted by JpRngr

Jack up one front wheel at a time and shake the wheel back and forth at 3 and 9 o'clock and at 12 and 6 o'clock. Look and feel for excess play in your steering and suspension. Sometimes you even have to put a long pry bar under the tire and lift up and down to check for play in the ball joints.

Corey

I'll do that along with having somebody turning the wheel and looking for movement as well. Sounds like I just need to get under this rig again and start poking around!

[David Pozzi]

I had a Winnebago 23' class A that had a lot of steering column jerk when I hit a big bump. It felt like someone hammering on the steering column. It didn't result in a left or right tug, just WHAM! front to rear movement of the steering column when a big bump was hit.

Everything was in good shape, the prev owner installed a stability system with two large coil springs attached from the bottom of the A arm to the spindle on each side that may have helped reduce it. It holds the spindle on-center. The coach was easily blown left and right from air spilling off other cars. The front suspension does not have a huge weight capacity, so to carry the load, they balance most of the weight over the rear axle. This makes the front end relatively lightly loaded and it affects directional stability. The tires are a high profile with soft sidewalls in an attempt to soften the ride. This reduces directional stability a little.

[glassman]

yeah, you could have a bad "new" tire. My 23' class c would have a "shimmy" from one of the inner rear tires, new ones would fix the problem, but it would still come back with time (and it didn't sit much at all, so no flat spots).