Hi all, here with another potentially dumb question, because I am not actually mechanically literate (see username).
From what I've been reading about death wobble, it tends to happen when you hit a bump, or occasionally on sharp stabs of the brakes?
The problem that I've been having is that if I get it up over about 45 mph, then pretty regularly when I brake down back through that same range (about 50-40 mph or so), even when braking smoothly, it still sometimes starts the steering wheel shimmy and the whole front end gets squirrely. It's usually pretty mild or even absent, but on too many occasions recently it is getting semi-violent and very unnerving. I'm not sure if that is "death wobble" exactly, or another problem. Also, I've read that death wobble is usually countered by braking harder, whereas my problem seems to get better if I let off the brakes, then get back on them again, though it sometimes takes 2-3 off-and-ons to stop it happening. This scares the crap out of my girlfriend if the reason we are stopping is because there is another car stopped in front of us...
So does that sound like a typical case of death wobble in an 80? Or is it something else? I've fairly recently (recently enough that this shouldn't be a problem) had tie rod ends redone, and no other steering or suspension issues were noted by the shop at the time. The only thing I can easily notice underneath is that the boots/bushings/whatever on the ends of the straight rod that goes across behind the front axle (I do not know the name of this rod/bar thingy, so please feel free to enlighten me) appear to be crushed on one side and possibly oriented on somewhat different angles... see attached pictures for the left (first pic) and right (second pic) of that observation...
Any ideas? If people are going to suggest checking things like panhards or other components, it would be really helpful to have a pic or description of where those are on the 80, since I haven't had great luck trying to find a breakdown of what and where all the components of the front axle are, and even if I did, I don't actually know what I'd be checking... Hell, I only just learned what a pitman arm is, and I'm still not entirely certain what it does (guess is just locating other components?).
From what I've been reading about death wobble, it tends to happen when you hit a bump, or occasionally on sharp stabs of the brakes?
The problem that I've been having is that if I get it up over about 45 mph, then pretty regularly when I brake down back through that same range (about 50-40 mph or so), even when braking smoothly, it still sometimes starts the steering wheel shimmy and the whole front end gets squirrely. It's usually pretty mild or even absent, but on too many occasions recently it is getting semi-violent and very unnerving. I'm not sure if that is "death wobble" exactly, or another problem. Also, I've read that death wobble is usually countered by braking harder, whereas my problem seems to get better if I let off the brakes, then get back on them again, though it sometimes takes 2-3 off-and-ons to stop it happening. This scares the crap out of my girlfriend if the reason we are stopping is because there is another car stopped in front of us...
So does that sound like a typical case of death wobble in an 80? Or is it something else? I've fairly recently (recently enough that this shouldn't be a problem) had tie rod ends redone, and no other steering or suspension issues were noted by the shop at the time. The only thing I can easily notice underneath is that the boots/bushings/whatever on the ends of the straight rod that goes across behind the front axle (I do not know the name of this rod/bar thingy, so please feel free to enlighten me) appear to be crushed on one side and possibly oriented on somewhat different angles... see attached pictures for the left (first pic) and right (second pic) of that observation...
Any ideas? If people are going to suggest checking things like panhards or other components, it would be really helpful to have a pic or description of where those are on the 80, since I haven't had great luck trying to find a breakdown of what and where all the components of the front axle are, and even if I did, I don't actually know what I'd be checking... Hell, I only just learned what a pitman arm is, and I'm still not entirely certain what it does (guess is just locating other components?).
