Sudden violent vibration …

[tubman]

Pictures of the front and rear suspensions would help a lot.

[TJ]

How old are the tires? I/m betting it is a bad tire. Especially if it happened all of a sudden.

[deuce lover]

Put it up on a lift and take some pics so we can see what was done.Maybe the main leaf of the spring has reversed eyes?

[draggin49]

Originally Posted by tubman

Pictures of the front and rear suspensions would help a lot.

I have an appointment this morning . I will take pics of front /rear suspension as soon as I get home . Sorry about that , I should’ve done that already .

[petehoovie]

Originally Posted by deuce lover

IMO,the tires are to big.Here is a pic of the 35 sedan I had.Dropped axle and 16" 4.5 wide Kelseys in front with WW radials.Its now in Sweden.

[petehoovie]

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Originally Posted by draggin49

I will double check the rear tire size , I think the car has 6.00x16 front and rear
I tried to take a side pic of my front tire . Maybe I can bring it up a little bit in front and rear . Is there an easy way to do that or am I gonna have to buy a lot of new parts to make it happen? I’m not familiar with with raising ride height

[draggin49]

Originally Posted by TJ

How old are the tires? I/m betting it is a bad tire. Especially if it happened all of a sudden.

I tried to find a date code on the outside facing side of the tire but no luck. They look old to me though.the whitewall has tons of thin cracking throughout it which I wouldn’t think you’d see if the tires werent old. I’m gonna order a new set today . Brand on it is the Lester tire company. I’m debating between the new bias ply looking radials by diamond back or a set of firestone bias ply .

[tubman]

If you plan on driving the car a lot, go with the radials.

[Flathead Fever]

Originally Posted by draggin49

I tried to find a date code on the outside facing side of the tire but no luck. They look old to me though.the whitewall has tons of thin cracking throughout it which I wouldn’t think you’d see if the tires werent old. I’m gonna order a new set today . Brand on it is the Lester tire company. I’m debating between the new bias ply looking radials by diamond back or a set of firestone bias ply .

If I had replaced every tire at the phone company with small cracks, we would have gone broke. Every scheduled service, while they were up on the hoist, I spun the tires and looked at the tires for roundness, bulges, large cracks and nails. I did not worry about the tiny cracks. If a tire is over six-years old most tire shops will not patch them because of the liability but that's a tire that has been driven thousands of miles and been out in the sun. A garaged collector car is a little different. It's a judgement call and when giving advice I have to say the safest thing is to replace the tires but I would not do it on my personal cars.

I don't think that is going to stop your speed wobble. I made previous comments about the possible causes but that was on an unmodified vehicle. I agree with others that you need to post photos so we can see what was done to your cars' suspension and steering. Most likely, something is allowing that front axle to move from side to side or bounce up and down, or both. Maybe they took too many leaves out of the front spring. the shackles are too long...

[Seth Swoboda]

Originally Posted by tubman

Pictures of the front and rear suspensions would help a lot.

I agree. If it's not too difficult post some photos of what that looks like please.

[Kube]

Originally Posted by draggin49

I tried to find a date code on the outside facing side of the tire but no luck. They look old to me though.the whitewall has tons of thin cracking throughout it which I wouldn’t think you’d see if the tires werent old. I’m gonna order a new set today . Brand on it is the Lester tire company. I’m debating between the new bias ply looking radials by diamond back or a set of firestone bias ply .

Keep in mind that the extra weight of the radial will compound and chassis issues.

[my4dv8]

Nice looking car. I doubt tire size affects anything, a round tire is around tire.Neither bias or radials will be the base cause of the death wobble. When you say that you had to hang on to the steering wheel ,it sounds much more than a simple vibration. Have you done something as simple as a wheel alignment? An old or out of balance tire will present this problem all the time .
The dropped axle shouldn’t be a cause, as the car is lowered front and rear the caster should be in the ball park, should be?

[petehoovie]

Tie rods ends loose or worn...

[draggin49]

Originally Posted by petehoovie

Tie rods ends loose or worn...

I jacked the car up finally once rain was gone. I grabbed the drag link maybe 8 inches from where it connects to the steering arm and pushed it , the steering arm was moving a bunch .
the bolts that hold the steering arm in were loose along with some other bolts . I tightened . Gonna take it for a test drive here shortly , I will let you guys know if the wobble is still there . Thanks again for all your help/insight

[Flathead Fever]

There is good chance that will fix it. Suspension and steering bolts don't usually come loose. If they did it once on your car, they will do it again, so you need to find out why that happened. All suspension and steering bolts if not original should be grade 8 with hardened grade 8 washers and grade 8 nuts. Never use regular hardware washers anywhere on the chassis or engine because the bolts and nuts will sink into the soft metal allowing the nuts to loosen. I only stock grade 8 washers in my bolt bin cabinet. I buy them a box at a time. If you don't have castle nuts with cotter pins use locknuts.

[draggin49]

Originally Posted by Flathead Fever

There is good chance that will fix it. Suspension and steering bolts don't usually come loose. If they did it once on your car, they will do it again, so you need to find out why that happened. All suspension and steering bolts if not original should be grade 8 with hardened grade 8 washers and grade 8 nuts. Never use regular hardware washers anywhere on the chassis or engine because the bolts and nuts will sink into the soft metal allowing the nuts to loosen. I only stock grade 8 washers in my bolt bin cabinet. I buy them a box at a time. If you don't have castle nuts with cotter pins use locknuts.

Previous owner paid a shop to do it but they never hooked up the shocks in front , I’m guessing all the time it was riding around like that ended up making things come loose . I’m gonna tell my mechanic to replace any non original bolts /washers with grade 8 like you mentioned .
I took it on a good 10 mile test drive , hit some bumps and rough spots in the road and got it up to around 50mph, never wobbled at all .

[my4dv8]

NICE . We completely rebuilt a front end on a 32 ,new everything . Just assumed the tierod was correct length new tie rod ends. All of a sudden after 6 months we got the violent scary death wobble, wouldn’t go away so trailered it home 3/4 hr. After exhaustive investigation found someone previously had stabbed the tierod in 1”1/4 too long toed in something terrible.

[Bored&Stroked]

Originally Posted by my4dv8

NICE . We completely rebuilt a front end on a 32 ,new everything . Just assumed the tierod was correct length new tie rod ends. All of a sudden after 6 months we got the violent scary death wobble, wouldn’t go away so trailered it home 3/4 hr. After exhaustive investigation found someone previously had stabbed the tierod in 1”1/4 too long toed in something terrible.

Question: Did it have a dropped front axle on it?

[my4dv8]

Nope stock 32 axle.

[jimvette59]

It is a 36, the searing box was not the best. It will probably be the searing box if it was not up graded to a 37 box that has a roller on the pitman arm JMHO.