now I have a wobble?!

inklegg · **Posted:** Thu Sep 09, 2010 8:23 am

OK, now I don't know what to do.......

I recently purchased some Cragar soft 8's. I had my General Grabber AT2's removed from my stock rims and mounted on the Cragars. The Grabbers only have about 4000 miles on them so I also rotated them. When they remounted the tires I also had them "flipped" so the white lettering is now out.

I had a noticeable wobble in the steering wheel, so I took them to another shop (an actual tire shop) to have them take a look. They rebalanced and checked the rims....everything OK!

My question is.......is it possible when they removed the tires from my stock rims that they damaged my sidewalls with the machine that compresses the tire to break the bead loose? If not, what other things would cause my steering wheel to shake?

Thanks in advance for sharing your knowledge!

inklegg · **Posted:** Tue Sep 14, 2010 10:14 pm

Tons of views, but no replys?!

I went back to the tire shop and had them put Equal (or something like that, similar to Dynabeads) in all tires. Got rid of about 90% of the shake, but still have a shake......any thoughts? Would an alignment help?

BugginKJ · **Joined:** Mon Jul 06, 2009 7:35 pm **Posts:** 4576

The wear pattern is in the tire for the direction they were, you fipped them changing the wear pattern and contact of the tire. Normal untill it wears out.
edit: sure it is possible for the machine to ruin the tire if the tech doesn't know what he is doing.

JL Rockies · **Posted:** Tue Sep 14, 2010 11:46 pm

yeah... it's kinda not a great idea to "flip" tires that "wore in" in a certain direction. Your life will suck for a little while assuming the tire doesn't get all "chunked" in which case your life might suck a little longer. Keep both hands on the wheel and your shoulders reared back.

BugginKJ · **Joined:** Mon Jul 06, 2009 7:35 pm **Posts:** 4576

JL Rockies wrote:

yeah... it's kinda not a great idea to "flip" tires that "wore in" in a certain direction. Your life will suck for a little while assuming the tire doesn't get all "chunked" in which case your life might suck a little longer. Keep both hands on the wheel and your shoulders reared back.

Sounds like advise my father gave me on my first date :ROTFL:

inklegg · **Posted:** Wed Sep 15, 2010 12:04 am

Would the tires be "wore in" enough to cause this with only 4k on them? If its just a matter of driving them until they re-ware themselves in, I will stop chasing my tail and just drive until it self corrects.

Thanks

kayadog · **Posted:** Tue Oct 05, 2010 8:52 pm

I have the same tires/wheels as you and have a slight but noticeable wobble at highway speeds in the steering wheel and a moderate hum even after getting balanced by a high end Hunter balancing machine with an expert technician. The Hunter machine made it better but it's still there. Bothered the hell out of me for awhile, but since the tires are wearing well and work great in every other way I can deal. The tech thought maybe one of the tires has a slight defect in the steel belts. The Cragar steel rims are known to be imperfect as well. Then again it could just be that they are heavy, aggressive all terrain tires on wide, heavy steel rims.

If you can isolate which tire/rim it is you can replace it and keep it as a full size spare. As much as I like the tires I will probably go with something more comfortable next time as my commute has gotten much longer and my off road time shorter.

long_tall_texan · **Posted:** Wed Oct 06, 2010 9:51 am

Not sure that I agree with the whole "wearing in" theory. You do the same thing when you rotate tires. I rotate both Fronts to Back and then Swap back right to Front Left and Back left to front right. When you switch sides of vehicle the tire is on, you start rotating it in the opposite direction.

So... My input to your problem is this. Did they balance the tires with standard clip-on wheel weights, or with sticky ones on the inside of rim. You will get a much better balance if they use standard wheel weights on both the inside and outside lips of the rim. A lot of shops try to just use inner weights, or use only stickies these days. They use less weight to get it to balance, but they are not as well-balanced. I had a similar problem with my 32x11.50x15 BFG AT's when I was running them. Took it to a good "old fashioned" tire shop and they re-balanced them with weights on inner lip and outer lip and all the vibration went away.

LibertyCRD · **Posted:** Wed Oct 06, 2010 10:37 am

I have heard that a lot of Cragar wheels are imperfect from the factory.

Not to mention, you just added 10 lbs. of weight PER CORNER to your Jeep.

Might be worth investigating.

inklegg · **Posted:** Wed Oct 06, 2010 3:56 pm

Wheels were balance by two different shops. they currently have clip on weights on both inner and outer lips. Didn't fix it, so I had Equal inserted into all the wheels. Seems to have fixed it to about 90%. I have been driving on them for almost a month now and they seem to either be getting better or I'm just getting used to it. Feels about 95% now. It is definitely becoming tolerable (way better than they started out). I get a little steering wheel shake at about 65mph. When the shake goes aaove or below that, I can feel some play in the steering wheel (an inch or so in both directions, more than I want).

I'm thinking changing the wheel profile slightly by going from 7-8" the tread on the outside just needs worn down a little (hoping). Add that to the fact that the rims are heavier = steering shake? I might get an alignment to see if that helps at all. Any thoughts?

now I have a wobble?!

Who is online