HELP Steering Wheel wobble/shaking only on hard acceleration from stop or slow speeds (video) (4 Viewers)

[jefo13]

I have been chasing this gremlin for nearly a year now and I am running out of fixes...
I also searched and read for months on mud but could not find a similar situation...

Setup:
- 2016 Land Cruiser
- Bilstein 6112/5160 Perch 4, Rear stock springs with 30mm spacers
- Stock wheels with now 285/70R18 KO3s and prior Duratrac 275/70R18
- 0.75" Bora spacers
Symptoms started years after mods above: Steering wheel wobbles or shakes (and some times it's like steering itself) and pulls right only when accelerating hard from stop or from slow speed. This is not happening at highways speeds even on hard acceleration. No weird noises. Everything looks good underneath.

Actions taken:
- Replaced Passenger Side CV joint (I thought this fixed it but I was wrong)
- Replaced UCAs
- Rebalanced/Rotated tires multiple times
- Replaced tires (last week) and rebalanced them
- Have aligned at least 6 times with Caster Ranging from 2.8 all the way to 4.2 - no change (see attached latest alignment)
- Shop hand tested front end for wobble to check joints and no symptoms

Video of wheel wobble/shake - the click you hear is my red bull sliding on the cup holder



Latest alignment

Thank you for any insights you may have!

 

[tbisaacs]

Have you checked the wheel spacers?

 

[doru]

Have you investigated the steering rack? I do not know if you have adaptive steering like LX, because that might explain the change in behavior with speed.

 

[Artie]

Could it be steering rack or LCA bushings?

I’d jack the front up with wheels unsupported and put a pry bar on all 4 LCA attachments and just give it some pressure to see what you see.

Whats your mileage?

 

[doru]

One idea, have someone outside the truck and film your wheel during hard acceleration at start. Is the wheel hopping?

 

[doru]

I had similar stuff on a Subaru Outback with a worn LCA bushing. But you said your shop tested all front-end bushings.

 

[jefo13]

Have you checked the wheel spacers?

Yes, torqued to specs no change over the years

 

[jefo13]

Could it be steering rack or LCA bushings?

I’d jack the front up with wheels unsupported and put a pry bar on all 4 LCA attachments and just give it some pressure to see what you see.

Whats your mileage?

Not sure about the steering rack other than grabbing the tie rod and rocking the crap out of them and no play anywhere.
I have about 76k miles
As for the LCAs I’ve not tried that, will ask next time it’s up on the track…

 

[jefo13]

I had similar stuff on a Subaru Outback with a worn LCA bushing. But you said your shop tested all front-end bushings.

Not sure about LCA so will focus on that next

 

[jefo13]

One idea, have someone outside the truck and film your wheel during hard acceleration at start. Is the wheel hopping?

Easy to do… will soon

 

[turbo8]

I was chasing the same issue. At the time, I didn’t have time to look into it myself, so I took it to a couple shops—but that turned out to be a waste of time. They all said nothing was wrong and blamed the larger tires.

Once I finally got a chance to look at it myself, I found a bunch of worn front end components. Here's what I replaced:

Front upper control arm bushings and uniballs — all were worn and loose. Rebuilding the arms made the biggest difference.

Front diff mounting bushings — these were shot, and replacing them helped some.

Balancing and rotating the tires — improved things a bit.

Steering rack — replacing it got rid of most of the remaining play.

I’d double-check everything up front, especially since you're running aftermarket control arms. Make sure everything is torqued down properly.

There's still a little play left, which I’ll chalk up to the larger tires and the nature of aftermarket suspension components.

For context, my LX has about 300k miles on it—most of the hard use has been in the last 100k.