Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Maintenance & Servicing Steering wheel vibration

Hi, just had new Yokohama C drives fitted all round my 4/4, soft wall tyre at low speed has really improved the ride, but at 68mph and above getting severe steering wheel vibration.....checked pressures all ok, balancing do you think or some to her issue ?

On the basis of probability, wheel balance since you didn't have the problem with the old tyres.

I would however check the wheel bearings and kingpin wear before taking the car and tyres back.

I have known useless balancing jobs before. Do make sure that all balance weights are removed on starting the job. I really have met 'balancers' who didn't.

Yepp! Had the same problem with bad balancing on my 4/4. After a different tyre shop balanced those it was gone.

Are you sure that the mechanic had the right cones if you have wire wheels?

Internal side the cone is male and outside female. The mechanic must have these dedicated cones. I live in France in a large town, only one mechanic who does restoration of English car has this tooling for wire wheels. If he uses conventional cones (male/male) for modern car with bolted wheels, the wheel cannot be centered correctly.

http://www.mwsint.com/site/cms/contentCategoryView.asp?category=140

My experience with a Morgan was and is that after 15K to 20 K km the wheel bearings urgently need a check. On my Roadster the front wheel bearings were so slack you could hear the click clack when shaking the wheel. After the bearing job the road holding improved significantly and steering vibration was gone. Just a guess as you use the description vibration and not issues like out of round hits.

A loose bearing is like a dirty window or a worn vinyl player stylus. The changes are constantly happening but the awareness can be a sudden moment. This experience could be forced by getting new tyres.

I've still got some vibration and or shimmy on my Roadster at anything over 80mph. Has always been there and still is in spite of Suplex being fitted, new tyres all round (alloys not wires) which were carefully balanced by a good tyre shop who Mike Duncan uses and switching wheels around. The cars only done 2400 miles so can't be wheel bearings. It spoils the car.

It obviously bugged the previous owner as he had Richard Thorne rebalance at each annual service. Probably why he only did 700 miles in 4 years.

I wonder if the cause is front wheel alignment. Possibly get Chunky to set up the front wheels as if he was taking it racing.

About the only thing I can think of is that the castor angle might not be equal on both sides of the car. It should be 6 degrees. A fraction more wouldn't be a problem, but anything less and you might get a bit of shimmy. I would take it to Peter Mulberry, he'd be able to sort it out.

It needs something doing.....before I'm tempted to swap it for an Elise!

John,
my Roadster does that but only rarely & on uneven surfaces. It has alloys
How are the tyres pressures?
John