Hi there,
I've been having an issue since last spring on my 91' RHD PZJ77 which has been getting progressively worse. When the front left wheel reaches the center of the road or when I'm driving on roads with deep ruts the truck will suddenly sway to one side or the other. I can't feel any play from the steering wheel end so I'm guessing the damper is hiding any upstream play. I've asked someone to move the steering wheel back and forth while I was feeling for any play along the tie rods, tie rod ends, relay rod, pitman arm etc. and the only place where I could feel any play was on the passenger side relay rod end. The castle nut was still tight in place and I couldn't feel the tapered pin itself moving within the receiving part of the associated tie rod end. The play appears to come from inside the relay rod end under the rubber boot (see attached picture and repair manual page). Its hard to quantify but the play I'm feeling appears to be less than a millimeter (approx 1/32") in the hand when wiggling the rod end around. Is this enough to cause the swaying I'm experiencing or should I look elsewhere?
(I believe this manual shows the LHD version)
What puzzles me is that I replaced both tie rod ends and relay rod ends on spring 2019 (555 kit from Cruiser Outfitters) and they went in fine. At the same time I installed new wheels, new tires, had the truck aligned and it ran great all summer and winter of 2019. No off road driving or abuse of any kind. I first noticed a problem this spring when swapping out winter tires and rotating the summer tires introducing the still unused spare tire. I had a pretty severe shimmy at the front. I tried swapping tires around again cleaning the spacers (6mm) in the process to make sure I hadn't introduced any dirt and after a few swap attempts the vibration went away and didn't come back (new spare still unused at this point). I assumed this was because the spare wasn't balanced properly or because there was a very slight wear difference between the spare and the other tires although I had driven less than 3000km on them at that point.
Any ideas?
Thanks!
I've been having an issue since last spring on my 91' RHD PZJ77 which has been getting progressively worse. When the front left wheel reaches the center of the road or when I'm driving on roads with deep ruts the truck will suddenly sway to one side or the other. I can't feel any play from the steering wheel end so I'm guessing the damper is hiding any upstream play. I've asked someone to move the steering wheel back and forth while I was feeling for any play along the tie rods, tie rod ends, relay rod, pitman arm etc. and the only place where I could feel any play was on the passenger side relay rod end. The castle nut was still tight in place and I couldn't feel the tapered pin itself moving within the receiving part of the associated tie rod end. The play appears to come from inside the relay rod end under the rubber boot (see attached picture and repair manual page). Its hard to quantify but the play I'm feeling appears to be less than a millimeter (approx 1/32") in the hand when wiggling the rod end around. Is this enough to cause the swaying I'm experiencing or should I look elsewhere?
(I believe this manual shows the LHD version)
What puzzles me is that I replaced both tie rod ends and relay rod ends on spring 2019 (555 kit from Cruiser Outfitters) and they went in fine. At the same time I installed new wheels, new tires, had the truck aligned and it ran great all summer and winter of 2019. No off road driving or abuse of any kind. I first noticed a problem this spring when swapping out winter tires and rotating the summer tires introducing the still unused spare tire. I had a pretty severe shimmy at the front. I tried swapping tires around again cleaning the spacers (6mm) in the process to make sure I hadn't introduced any dirt and after a few swap attempts the vibration went away and didn't come back (new spare still unused at this point). I assumed this was because the spare wasn't balanced properly or because there was a very slight wear difference between the spare and the other tires although I had driven less than 3000km on them at that point.
Any ideas?
Thanks!