rsilver

My front end is all over the road on certian roads which have mild dips in them. On concrete surfaced smooth roads things are fine but when I get on an asphalt road with dips I get pulled all over the road. Changing lanes can be scary cause as soon as you start up the crown of the road, it pulls you fast and hard into the other lane. I have new ball joints, tie rod ends and other components seem very tight. I also have a wonder bar and STB . See sig.
My alignment specs are:
Left Right
camber -.4 -.6
caster 4.0 4.4
toe 0.00 .02

We spent a lot of time to get that much caster, it was hard to get
beyond 3.7.

I have moved tires from left to right etc and tried different pressures but no help. .

Anyone have an idea? I drive the car fast and it gets scary sometimes.

Thanks for your help............bob

By the way, I installed the bear disc set up on the front
but haven't added it to my sig. Thought that would help high speed safety and man, it sure does.

91Z28-350

How are your tires wearing? Look for uneven wear on your front tires. The edges should be wearing quickly from the wobbling front end. Check your centerlink.

Just look for play in your other components when you have it jacked up.

waltersb

I experience something similar on the local roads, highways are fine...

I was told and I agree that it's pretty much entirely due to the width of your tires... See, most vehicles have much narrower tires and wear groves in the road that are as wide as they are, but because your tires are wider, they tend to grab all the grooves and shove you around... look at the end of a bit of road and see ones with more grooves, and see how much worse it pulls you... I've noticed T and big intersections are bad, especially ones where there's lots of transport traffic...

AGood2.8

What you are experiencing is called "bump steer". Bump steer is created from improper tierod geomerty usually from lowering a vehicle. Here's the clencher and what most people don't know or understand- bump steer is also caused by too much positive caster. If your car is lowered or lots of caster you well experience this, If your car is lowered AND lots of caster you will fight this drastically. Try installing a Baer Tracker Bump steer kit and most of this can be adjusted away.

jcurrieirocz

I dont know man,,,,,if your car drives fine on flat roads its the road not your car. I found this very much with all my cars with wide tires....especially under breaking in dips. All of them did it in dips or track dips left from other cars over time. And all my cars with wide tires that did this were stock ride hieght.
If its more obvious at highspreeds then it may be your front shocks. If your center link is gone then yould have too much play in your wheel and the guy doing a quality alignment would of showed you it was bad and wouldnt of wasted his time and your time and $ on a alinment job untill it was fixed. Another thing it may be is bad rubber bushings in your rear panard bar. Your stabalizer links are all good right?? You may just have to live with it.

waltersb

I pretty much only have this problem under breaking....

it grabs some other times too... but mostly under breaking... and my ride is stock.

Slade1

I've learned to live with it... makes me glad to throw on the 15's once in awhile as not to suffer from this.. freaking 16's are great in most conditions, but take it into a city and you're screwed... it'll follow into any groove and takes a good amount to fight it.

rsilver

Thanks guys. Baer told me BEFORE I installed their brakes to consider some of their bump steer tie rod ends. Guess I should have done that. I am going to look into the caster issue. I thought the more caster the better, but maybe not. It would be easy to reduce caster and give it a try. Thanks very much for the response.................bob

82camaro

I don't think he is talking about bump steer. You have to hit a bump(compress the suspension) to see the effect of bump steer. He is talking about the grooves in the road. Making the steering suspension as tight as possible helps. Wide tires 'tend' to make it worse. Also, tire brand and type make a difference. I went from BFG comp t/a's to goodyear eagle gsc's and the grooves are much, much easier to handle. All it takes is one or more items loose in the steering suspension to make the grooves terrible to drive on(tie-rods, centerlink, idler arm, steering gear, rag joint, etc...) All the cars I've driven on the 17 mile strech to Kearney will grab the grooves to some extent(Parents new tahoe, sisters 96 bonneville, wifes 95 cutlass, my 91 GMC Jimmy, and the 82 camaro). The worst is the 91 GMC Jimmy with 245/60R15's--the problem with it is that it isn't quite wide enough to fit in both grooves at the same time.

Slade1

I don't even notice the effect on my 215/65/15 tires... I run that and its a different car, parking, driving in city etc...

I stick on the 16's and here comes the arm workout...

I'm gonna get it aligned, I do it every 8 months to a year just because I get in a lot of mileage in that amount of time...

Justins86bird

You should try 275s on a bad road. I'm all over the place!

AGood2.8

Let me quote what he said so you can re-read it:
RSilver wrote:My front end is all over the road on certian roads which have mild dips in them. On concrete surfaced smooth roads things are fine but when I get on an asphalt road with dips I get pulled all over the road.

He state that it happens on roads with dips- smooth roads have no effect.-That's definately bump steer.

Bump steer will not show up as bad with skinnier higher profile tires- they are more forgiving.

rsilver

Agood2.8. HITHERE am glad you can read. It is HITHERE dip problem so the suspension is compressing and its gotta be bump steer problem.

Wish HITHERE had the baer tie rod ends.
HITHERE do have HITHERE problem with grooves in the road too, but that is HITHERE different issue. Anyway , thank you all. Let you know if HITHERE ever put the baer rod ends on and if that solves problem with proper alignment.................bob

rsilver

f***, f**** etc. Sorry about that post. HITHERE got on the wrong keys.
Anyway, it is HITHERE bump steer problem and HITHERE wish HITHERE had the baer tie rod ends. Will let you guys know if HITHERE get them and if it solves the problem.................bob

rsilver

Did HITHERE do it again? HITHERE don't think so!!!! Something is wrong with my keyboard or something. sorry again...............bob

Omega

iTrader: (1)

I have the same problem with my 275's. The car is lowered (with spindles) with a complete steering/suspension rebuild. It is intermitent so I know it is the roads.

Just grap the wheel with both hands and hand on tight!

AGood2.8

RSilver, So people here just don't get the fact that we all experience some sort of grooves in the road in any car- and causes side to side pull sometimes- to what degree? Answer: this depends on how square and rigid your tire sidewall is.

With that said- you are correct in agreeing that there is other cercustances that can cause this also and those CAN be corrected.

To all others- keep thinking its all road grooves when its most likely 50% grooves and 50% dips/bumps. The dips/bumps part can be corrected and make driving more of a pleasure that having a deathgrip on your steering wheel all the time- I have never had a car that I had to hang on to the wheel so nerviously - even over grooves.

Omega

iTrader: (1)

AGood2.8:

Out of curiosity, what size tires are you running?

AGood2.8

335/35 17's on the Vette- if this don't catch groove I don't know what would- yes I have experience with wide low profile tires Omega

AGood2.8

245/50 16's on the Camaro.
- part of your problem is a tire too big for the rim if you have 16's- 17x 9's your fine on a 275.

Omega

iTrader: (1)

See, with 335's you are so wide, you completely miss the groove! BTW :hail: your vette!

I have 17X9 rims (see avatar), the tire is the correct size for the rim.

In my case, the alignment is set up to factory specs, both on the Formula and the T/A I had. The T/A used to track a little bit in the grooves, but not very badly. Once I bought the Formy, which had the 16's it would track quite a bit more. Now with the 4th gen WS6 rims it sometimes pulls like a bastard. It is very intermitent, dips and bumps don't make the car twitch at all, but changing lanes can be fun sometimes.

Randy82WS7

ok good thread here, looks like we are talking about two different things here for sure,

ive got problem with the 88 bird, got the car all back togetehr this AM aftetr it was parked not running for at least 11 months thats when the plates expired anyways. anytime i encounter dips in road the steeering wheel will jerk hard back and forth and tires skip over the dips like a rock skipping across water. car has stock 15" pontiac aluminum wheels and normal tires and not lowered, is just a 2.8 car.

curious to see responses and info

AGood2.8

Personally I would lean strongly toward your shocks/struts being shot to heil and your entire steering system in neglect- car needs serious attention.

TekViper

my car does this too. there is this piece of highway near me i travel almost everyday and i have to fight the car to stay straight on it. its even worse when braking. every other road is fine tho, i found it really weird. its not bad, but if you arent paying attention i see how u could throw the car into a different lane on accident. i'll try some of the tips in this thread to fix it.

rsilver

I have been driving my car a lot lately cause I finished up the bear breaks and the 1.6 rockers. I drive it fast and the uneven roads are just getting plain scary at high speed. I am going to order a set of bump steer tie rods tomorrow and hopfully this will help. I probably won't get them on for a while with work and all.
Will let you all know what results are.......bob

ps I gotta check out who can do a proper alignment with these tie rods cause so many alignment places don know S****....

Randy82WS7

whats wierd is that these cars were rated as damn near the best handling cars ever built, and the 84 Z28 i had had NO problem of any kind with handling and steering and it was a million miles neglected car, this car yuo can tell was taken care of more than the 84 Z was, this 88 has no real rust, no real damage other than the fender accident. un-molested interior and under hood and everywhere else, even original wheels and sterio and all...


i would think that skipping over dips in road would mean too stiff of a front end, IE. the arm shafts not swinging enough to allow the arms to swing and allow the tires to follow the dips..


right ?

hmm.....