Y’all. If your 80 handles poorly when hitting bumps. Take a look at your steering stabilizer. I never thought the stabilizer did much and some folks are against them. However my 91 has 200k miles with the original stabilizer so decided to put a new one on. Took the old one off and it was totally worn out. No dampening. Put a new Old Man Emu on and now the 80 drives like a sports car. Hit 70 mph no issues where as before it was knuckle grip on the wheel. Next thing to address is worn anti sway links. Tighten these up on some of my other suvs and it made huge improvement in handling. Who would have thought a couple of lose links made that much differences
Steering Stabilizer
- Thread starter FJ80HI
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What about the rest of the bushings? Miles dont matter. It's still 35 years old.
There it is!
Take care of all the old worn suspension and steering components, and that steering damper will have less and less work to do
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Everything is actually tight. The steering damper is there for a reason thanks to those Toyota design engineers
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Them good for now. Nice and tightWhat about the rest of the bushings? Miles dont matter. It's still 35 years old.
What is worn with your anti sway links? Photo please.
I can’t really see problems with them but if they’re loose that must be a sure sign. When you pull on them by hand can you observe wear and movement?
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These in the pics are ok and tight . I tightened them. If they have play. They are a problem. Interesting I have a 2007 Range Rover sport and after hitting a large bump the car seemed to lurch side ways 6 inches on the road. When replacing brake pads found a sway bar link was broken. $30 part from auto zone fixed the issue replaced the 6inch long link
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The main thing the new old man emu damper did was to increase the steering effort. At slow speeds or stopped the power steering pump is definitely working harder. May not be so good for my 35 year old pump and hoses. I replace if needed. But at speed I like the stiffer steering feel. With the worn out damper it was like driving a 1971 cadilac coupe de ville.
I'm one of the people who doesn't run a damper.
If suspension and steering components are in good shape, they drive great.
I'm not trying to say a damper does nothing, I just think the money spent on a damper would get better bang for your buck spent on refreshing other parts in the front end.
If you noticed a big difference with a new damper, there's probably other stuff that could use attention
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Like I stated. The damper basically added more resistance on the steering. With power steering a vehicle can either add to much or to little assist. That is why hi tech cars have variable assist steering. Also when off road and you hit a big rock or obstacle. The damper will reduce the amount the steering can lurch out of your hands. To each his or her own. However I think the Toyota engineers were pretty good seeing the fj80 is considered the most durable vehicle ever made. And bought this from auto zone. Only $70. I think excellent deal. I should add the stabilizer probably increases the life of all steering components by reduce minute cyclic loadings. Even new steering system will have some vibration as nothing from the steering wheel to the front tires are not made and balanced perfect
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wonder if a damper would hide my wobble over 80km/h, since the wheel balance and new tyres hasnt haha! I'm not running a damper at the moment.
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I would correct the wobble. Check your caster and wheel alignment and bearing play and the anti sway and track bar play
caster can be checked, but non adjustable from factory (I dont have aftermarket bits and pieces to adjust this).
no bearing play, only toe is adjustable on the front and was done, car tracks straight, but not sure how if the toe was out it would do this, would be more likely to pull left or right. Front swaybar bushes were replaced and mounts are solid.
I between messages I took it back to the tyre place that balanced them a few weeks ago and he said the right was out 20g and left 10g, but that it shouldnt cause a wobble. I will suss it again on the freeway on Sunday... but I'm pretty confident it's still going to feel like my wheels arent balanced.
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Could a rim be bent? I looked at some of your past threads. Not sure what tires rims and lift you are now running. Maybe wheel not centered on hub especially if wheel spacers were used
Check your old origindl 35 yr old bushings! Doesn't matter of mileage of vehicle....replace all bushings.
No wheel spacers. Running brand new Yokohama Geolandar G018 in 265/75R16 size. Was doing the same thing with my previous tyres, which I thought were likely the problem being 12 year old bfgoodrich mud terrain km2s. Also thought it was wheel bearings, but since they've been replaced too, we're starting to scratch our heads a little. I will swap the wheels from front to back if it's still playing up, just to humour myself, despite the tyre place assuring me if the fronts balanced okay, that rotating would be a waste of time. They also assured me if a rim was bent they would notice on the balance machine. They rebalanced them again yesterday, saying it was out 10g on the left and 20g on the right, which is odd, because they'd only balanced them again 2 weeks ago. We'll see whether the shaking is still there on Sunday when I hit the freeway, though I'm positive it will be.
did you have a road force balance done? I had one BFG years ago that on a normal balance came up good but did cause a wobble at freeway speeds. Upon doing a road force balance it was much better but found the tyre to have a slight high spot in it