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MG MGA - FRONT END SHIMMY

My MGA has wire wheels with 185x65x15 tires using Dayton rims. On the freeway my cars front end will start to shimmy very bad and not a shake like a wheel out of balance. It seems like the wheel is bounce on and off the road. When I slow down speed it will go away or if I speed it up to a certain speed it will go away. Any ideas of what to check for to get rid of this problem.
Thanks
Jeff
JEFF BECKER

1.Your wheel may have thrown a balance weight.

2. If you have radial tires, check if the "belts" are started to come apart. Simply jack the car up, slowly turn the wheel and watch for any distortion of the tire as you rotate the wheel.

Cheers

Gary
79 MGB
gary hansen

Used to own a tire shop... Sounds like balance to me. That it happens at highway speed within a specific speed range is usually a dead giveaway. With broken belts you will usually feel something at all speeds once they get bad enough. That's relatively easy to diagnose, as Gary described.

-Del
D Rawlins

Are you sure that your wire wheels have been balanced properly?
Modern wheel balancing machines do not clamp wire wheels correctly.
You must use adaptors on these machine to clamp the the wheel on the correct surfaces.
This link will show how it must be done.

http://www.smoothridecones.co.uk

Mick
M F Anderson

Another vote for balance--
and don't forget the rears as well
Also if you have a dead front shock absorber ,the wheel only has to be a tiny bit out and it will start hopping at highway speed 60-70mph so might pay to give her a bounce and make sure they are damping movement properly
willy
William Revit

Could it be tie rod ends>
Art Pearse

I have an old MGA hub that has been machined to use for balancing the wheels. Looks like I will have the tires balanced to see what happens. Thanks for the information and hope this will work.
JEFF BECKER

Willies comment on a dead shock is right on! Check the shock for s dead spot....along with tire balancing!

Goodluck! weird how it always happens at the 65 to 70 mph range!
S

This thread was discussed between 14/06/2017 and 03/07/2017

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