p38 steering wobble, camber problem

[jmonsrvr]

Im posting this for a friend who has recently had several issues with her steering. (2002 p38). She recently developed a bad steerng wobble (death wobble) at freeway speeds. You drive a certain speed then hit a bump and it all starts to shake. Well she took into the rover shop and they checked out the front end and told her she needed to replace her tires. (she also had really bad tire were on the inner part of both front tireswhich lead me to believe the front end camber was off).

so she gets four new tires from a reputable place that supplies tires to a lot of rovers in the area. (by the way she alos tried to self diagnose a few weeks earlier by getting a set of 4 new ome shocks- still had the shakes after the install- again only at freeway speed and hitting a slight bump). The guy at the tire place says he cant do the alignment. the toe setting is correct but the tires are bent in (top of tires going inward slightly). She has not been in any accidents no offroading so the axle housing is straight. Problem started a few months ago. she said after she got the 4 new tires that there was no death wobble, but that she still felt like it was on the verge of shaking. I have not driven the truck so i dont know.

She is now going to take the p38 into a specialty alignment shop that does rovers, hot roads, high end cars tomorrow morning....

My question is this- Could it be the swivel pin bearings? or something else? (THE guys at the rover shop said that bushings and steering components were fine?? did a search and couldnt really find anything specific to a p38. I have 93 lwb that i bought new back in the day and know nothing about p38s.

id really like to offer some help. shes pretty stressed on the whole thing dumping over a grand into her truck in the last month.

thanks

[jmonsrvr]

anyone?

[Rover Mac]

My P38 developed a death wobble a few years ago, changed the tie rod ends, did an alignment only to find the problem persisted, it turned out to be the tires which i had rebalanced and the 2 with the most weights fitted to the rear. problem solved.

[KyleT]

p38 has unit bearings that can be changed without replacing the whole unit. the swivels are ball joints.

it is very very similar to a D2 in its setup. my old '00 had some crazy shudder and it ended up being the radius arm bushings at the frame.

[Tedlou]

Originally Posted by KyleT

it ended up being the radius arm bushings at the frame.

X2, same thing on my 99. Not too hard to replace. I got mine @ Atlantic British but I am sure you can get them any where that sells Land Rover parts.