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MG MGA - Peculiar Steering wheel shake

I have posted this already on the MGEXp forum but thought it might be useful here too.

I drove down to Dartmouth about 150 miles last week mostly on motorways. The first 50 miles in the morning before it got hot was as usual, no noticeable out of balance on the front wheels or steering wheel shake. Late this afternoon I drove the remainder of the journey when temperatures were mid to high 20's. Soon after joining the motorway I noticed a distinct shake in the steering wheel anywhere between 65 and 73 mph. However, after a few minutes the shake went away with the steering wheel rock steady. A few minutes later the shake re-appeared again only to go away again a few minutes after. This continued for the whole of the journey and there was no noticeable change to the shake as I reduced speed or increased it. The shake was at worst quite pronounced moving the steering wheel about 10mm which was quite disconcerting. The car has just passed its MOT with a very slight looseness in the nearside front and rear wheel bearings but otherwise fine. The front tyres are two years old Continentals and were balanced when fitted. I checked the car at a service stop and could not see or feel any issue with the front wheels. Note the wheels are painted wire wheels?


I had the front wheels balanced on Friday before my journey home. I was using a set of cones from Smoothride at a tyre fitters who were very experienced with wire wheels and classic cars, Buyrite Tyres in Newton Abbott, Devon. They let me test drive the car before paying. The wheels had been balanced before and one needed 60g of weight which is quite a lot. However, it did improve the irregular wheel shake but did not eliminate it. I went back and had the rear wheels balanced as well. These tyres are much older, 2006 manufactured, 2010 fitted. This seemed to improve the situation a lot. However, I was not able to drive for good long distances at speed because the M5 traffic was so heavy so I need another long journey to be sure it is solved.

John Francis

Sounds like you need to jack up the car and give the wheels and tyres a spin to see if there is any obvious tyre or rim issues.

Are all the spokes intact?

Let us know if you find anything

Cheers
Colyn
Colyn Firth

Our local car club had a Michelin rep give a lunchtime talk about tires, wheels, etc.

One thing he emphasized is that the age of the tires, no matter how good they look, is critical. While Michelin recommends changing every 5 years, he admitted that was conservative but highly recommended not going past 10. The age is purely determined by the tire stamping, not fitting and placed in service. Basically, as the rubber ages, it gets less flexible and increases the likelyhood of the belts separating. The rubber itself becomes harder and more like plastic. Stopping distances increase, turning traction in both wet and dry is decreased.

John - given that your tires are now 18 years old, even without the steering shake, you should seriously consider replacement for the sake of safety.

Best,

- Ken

KR Doris

A point about balancing--
Are your balancing people putting the weights where the balancer recommends or trying to hide them on the back side of the rim.
If the owner wants the weights hidden in the rear, sometimes it's just impossible to get the balance close enough to be ok---if the readout on the balancer says weight needed on the outside then that's where it needs to go.
Also check that the operator is setting the specs as in rim dia.,width and offset into the machine to match your wheels. and set to 'fine' balance(otherwise it's within 5g)
A 'lot' of tyre places just poke in an average set of specs and balance everything that comes in the door at that -- might pay to ask.
If it's been set up correctly you should have perfect balance and if there's a tyre out of round issue the operator should be able to tell by watching as it spins. A slight out of round can be put on the rear and be undetectable on the road but you will feel it at the 60/70mph speed on the front.

willy
William Revit

This thread was discussed between 05/08/2024 and 13/08/2024

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