Front Shimmy
 

I have a 1995 Bronco 5.8 auto with p/s and I get a shimmy on the right side front and it is very noticeable around 70-75mph. Oddly enough, the shimmy tapers down when doing 80 mph. I rotated the tires 3 weeks ago and it is still there. What the heck can it be?

Just about anything up there...tierod end, ball joint, shock, wheel bearing(s), axle pivot bushing, radius arm bushing. Best thing to do is check everything out until you find something that seems plausible as a cause. Rod ends and ball joints would be my first check. Give the tread on the tire a look. If it shows any signs of "cupping" (which is a sawtooth look to the tops of the tread lugs) on either the inner or outer edges of the tread the balljoints are suspect. Jack the wheel off the ground by lifting at the axle. Try to swing the tires left to right by alternately pushing/pulling on the front and rear of it. If it shifts or there is any "slop" when you do, the tie rod end is suspect. Doing the same thing at the top and bottom of the tire and getting movement reveals a dying balljoint. From there, you are pretty much limited to visual inspection of the radius arm bushings and the axle pivot bushings. A dying shock will allow the truck to bounce more than once or twice after rocking it hard from side to side. If you don't want to do all this yourself, a shop could seek out the problem for you and they would perform these same tests to figure it out.

Thanks for your help. I will try this myself. The shocks are shot, so I may go ahead and replace all of the shocks and take it from there.

mine does the same thing, my solution is to keep it under 70ish....most of the time. i figure its not the brightest thing to go blinding speeds in a 14 year old vehcle with 125000 miles on it

Yeah, the thought of slowing down also crossed my mind. Might be cheaper as well.

Actually, I'm hoping that just replacing the shocks would do most or all of the trick. I would keep it 70 anyway, except it has that shimmy when I'm cruising.

I dunno guys my 302 with 152,000+ ticks on the meter still loves to crusie at about 72-74 mph all day long. Is it safe or even a good idea, probably not but the ol' girl is just "comfortable" running right around these speeds. I think the 302 just likes the 2K RPM range a whole lot.

Whoa now! Jack the front up. You should be able to feel the loose component by manually movement of the tire.

Yep, I just went out there and noticed some play doing the top to bottom push and pull. Guess it's a dying balljoint. The front driver side tire did not have the play the passenger side had. Of ocurse, that is the side I am getting that shimmy.