Re: Shimmie Problem...Steering Damper (archive)

When I bought the car, it did not shimmy (it has bilstein sports, st springs, 15x7's and urethane rack bushings). After I changed the front strut housings and front rotors, it shimmied.

I tried everything. I had it aligned. I checked the front hub assemblies. I tried a different set of wheels (with new tires freshly balanced). I checked air pressures. I had it aligned again. It still shimmied.

Then I had the wheels balanced on the car. That did the trick. Find a good alignment shop. They'll balance the wheels on a machine, then fine tune them on the car.

The downside to balancing on the car is that you can't switch wheels around, and the wheels must always be oriented the same way on the hub/rotor, i.e., a particular lug hole in the wheel must always line up with the same hole on the hub/rotor.

The upside is that my car was _hooked_ _up_ at Buttonwillow last weekend. :)

ljp
323i

For all you guys that have the shimmie problem.

I've installed the anti-shimmy kit, the urethane red rack
bushings AND I've also put a steering damper on my 83 320is
I believe this was found on earlier models. I also have a new rack, new tie rods, new rotors, and all new rubber bushings on the front end.

In order to fit this, you may have to use an earlier tie-rod
on later models.

With all of this I still get a shimmy.
I am upgrading the suspension and will get an alignment.
I hope this will finally cure the problem.
If not, I'm donating my car away......Just kidding
I'll let everyone knows how it feels after.

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