still fighting

[Fahad]

the 50-60 shimmy in my 525i

changing the upper arms and tie rods helped alot but didn't cure the problem.

all tyres changed and balanced
all brake disks and pads changed

next?
im not sure!

i have 16" replica wheels


seems like all coming options are going to be costly.
im thinking new original wheels, or replacing other suspension parts.

can't do both together right now..
so what do you guys think i have to do first?
save up for new good wheels
or replace other suspension parts?

many thanks

[CharlesAFerg]

You in Oregon? I'll give you my old bottlecaps that I just took off for 50 bucks. They work great, just not as beautiful as my style-5s.

[AngryPopTart]

Have you always had this shimmy?

I remember having a vibration in my car caused by the two-piece driveshaft being assembled out of it's original position, imbalancing it, but not a shimmy.

When you had tires put on your car, did they remove the stickers from the tires before balancing? If not, make them do it again. My Paps used to balance his tires when he worked at the dealership and the sticker actually weighed alot and the wheel would become imbalanced after the sticker came off the tire. The other guys didn't believe him until he ran the tire with the sticker, then removed it and ran it again. It's comical seeing guys leave tire shops with Corvettes and Vipers where they left the sticker on the tire. Not safe!

[Denton]

Have you always had this shimmy?

I remember having a vibration in my car caused by the two-piece driveshaft being assembled out of it's original position, imbalancing it, but not a shimmy.

When you had tires put on your car, did they remove the stickers from the tires before balancing? If not, make them do it again. My Paps used to balance his tires when he worked at the dealership and the sticker actually weighed alot and the wheel would become imbalanced after the sticker came off the tire. The other guys didn't believe him until he ran the tire with the sticker, then removed it and ran it again. It's comical seeing guys leave tire shops with Corvettes and Vipers where they left the sticker on the tire. Not safe!

lol at username

[BillionPa]

wheel bearings, drive shaft (and/or guibo/center bearing), etc, etc..

did they do a roadforce balance with the tire pressre the same across the board?

[Jehu]

do you know about Hubcentric rings? These are alminum rings which fit over the wheel hub onto which you put the wheels .Theyprevent the offcenter tightening of the wheels and completely fixed my 50 mph shimmy when i first got the car.I contacted Rondell, the manufaturer of my wheels and they told me The rings have to be 74.1 to 72.6 and the name is ZRH for my Rondell 58's at 17x8.5. maybe since these are aftermarket wheels you need them as well and the wheel manufacturer could give you the right size.

[Fahad]

You in Oregon? I'll give you my old bottlecaps that I just took off for 50 bucks. They work great, just not as beautiful as my style-5s.

if they work better than my wheels i don't mind buying them and putting them on Temporarily till i save some cash for new wheels.

50 bucks is a good deal but can you ship them to middle east for free? :D

thanks
you just gave me an option to consider

[BillionPa]

also, did you have the transmission and engine mounts replaced? even a single mount on my engine made a world of difference.

[Paul in NZ]

get your wheels checked for roundness and straightness.A small bend can cause ashimmy in these cars.Most alloy wheels can be repaired very successfully,but they need to be done by someone who knows what they are doing.See if you can borrow a set of std wheels and tyre in that are known to be good

[Fahad]

yes Angry
i had this shimmy since i got the car a month and half ago
funny thing i didn't notice any shimmy when i test drove the car for like half an hour before buying it!

yes stikers were removed then tires were balanced.

was your vibration noticable only in the 50-60 mph range?
my cars goes just fine before and after that speed range.
i think i will take a look at the driveshaft to make sure everything is in the right position.
many thanks

--------



BillionPa

will have to check wheel bearings althou i don't notice any sound but yes they might be shot and i have no clue when the last time they have been changed.

i will let my mechanic look at the drive shaft aswell..but i am not sure a bad guibo/center bearing cause vibration only between 50 and 60 mph

-------


Jehu
i don't know much about hubcentric rings.. does it work like a wheel spacers?
excuse my ingnorance

last week a friend told me he bought a costum made wheel spacer ring from a turning shop (a shop here checked his wheels and made him the rings)..he claims they work fine on hes 17" replicas and they solved hes high speed vibration..maybe he was talking about hubcentric rings?


since this is not a costly option i will give it a try but honestly i don't know where my wheels come from!
can a shop measure what hubcentric size i need? and do you thing doing them in a torning shop is a good idea or is it more complicated for thsese little shops to get perfect?


thx for your help guys

[BillionPa]

i didnt hear any noise in my rear bearings till i drove without the back seat on, now i can tell how much lateral force during a turn by the change in grinding noise!

as for the front bearings, the rust wasnt letting the rotors sit evenly, and had changed the rotational vibration of the wheel hub itself.

[632 Regal]

dude, bet you dont have round tires, I went through this when I first bought my car. Took all year and then i got them sempirit snow tires for the winter (stock) rims...smooth as a babys bottom. I actually bought 2 sets of tires, spent countless hours at discount tire for tires that werent round...do a search on it, i was enraged. Anyways all the balancing and roadforce work in the world wont make square tires round.

[AngryPopTart]

My vibration kicked in around 35-40mph I think... I don't remember if it went away the faster you went. When I got the car, it had a nasty sound in the back that I thought was the exhaust, because the muffler was indeed rusted out and the car was loud, but it turned out the right rear wheel bearing was shot. I also checked the fluid in the rear-end (the drive axle) and no matter how far I stuck my finger in the fill hole, I couldn't touch any fluid so I ended up dumping alot of new gear oil in before it got near the fill hole. I'm glad I caught this early on. Thing is, it doesn't seem to leak any gear oil so I wonder where the old stuff went. Regardless, I suggest checking yours!

[Jehu]

yes Angry
i had this shimmy since i got the car a month and half ago
funny thing i didn't notice any shimmy when i test drove the car for like half an hour before buying it!

yes stikers were removed then tires were balanced.

was your vibration noticable only in the 50-60 mph range?
my cars goes just fine before and after that speed range.
i think i will take a look at the driveshaft to make sure everything is in the right position.
many thanks

--------



BillionPa

will have to check wheel bearings althou i don't notice any sound but yes they might be shot and i have no clue when the last time they have been changed.

i will let my mechanic look at the drive shaft aswell..but i am not sure a bad guibo/center bearing cause vibration only between 50 and 60 mph

-------


Jehu
i don't know much about hubcentric rings.. does it work like a wheel spacers?
excuse my ingnorance

last week a friend told me he bought a costum made wheel spacer ring from a turning shop (a shop here checked his wheels and made him the rings)..he claims they work fine on hes 17" replicas and they solved hes high speed vibration..maybe he was talking about hubcentric rings?


since this is not a costly option i will give it a try but honestly i don't know where my wheels come from!
can a shop measure what hubcentric size i need? and do you thing doing them in a torning shop is a good idea or is it more complicated for thsese little shops to get perfect?


thx for your help guys

There are Wheel Spacers which bolt onto the hub to extend the wheel out from the hub and there are Hub-centric Rings which slide over the outer surface of the circumference of the hub which takes up any slight gap between the inner bore of the wheel and the hub surface resulting in a much more close to perfect fitment .I was suggesting the latter; see
here (http://www.bmwe34.net/E34main/Upgrade/wheels_upgrade.htm).

[Dave M]

Agree with Jeff. I had the shimmy, did thrust arms, shocks springs, balancing. No change. I then received used 16" baskets, monted new tires on them AND changed a single tie rod end.

Voila, smooth sailing. So, it could have been either the wheels/tires or tie rod end, but I would hit the tires up first.

DAve M

[mamilapon]

try replacing tie rod end. Did you load the car before torquing control arms and thrust arms? Good luck!

[Fahad]

as i mentioned, i put on 4 new Bridgestone tires
tie rod ends and thrust arm changed recently
all pads and discs changed


thanks for the explaination Jehu
i sure need those hubcentric rings since the wheels are not original and don't seem to be in good condition i think they are causing problems.

might look for a set of good used original wheels if any appears in a reasonalbe price.

if that doesnt work i will look at the wheel bearings then the drive shaft as some of you suggested..

now it would help to swap wheels from any other e34 and drive the car for a test and see whether that solves the problem or not

thanks to all of you

[Fahad]

Did you load the car before torquing control arms and thrust arms?

i read about loading the car before torquing thrust arms

a shop with expert BMW mechanics did the job for me while i was at work so i thought the knew thier job, but can't make sure they loaded the car though..maybe i need to ask them.
what the mechanics did solved like 80% of the previous 50-60 shake i was getting (it was more like an earthquake!)

now what if he didnt load the car before torguing thrust arms? does that mean i have to do the bushing and ball joints again?!

lol i think i will go nuts with this car
its not bad sorting out these cars problems and it would be enjoyable only if money wasn't involved!

but you know.. Bring My Wallet!

[Fahad]

last night i put on original 15" wheels which came with michelin tires to see whether that solves the 50 shimmy or not.. the wheels where sitting in a used bmw parts shop.. i took the wheels for balancing and presure checking then put them on and went for a test drive..
no luck
car runs smooth till i hit 50mph
goes smooth again after 60mph

maybe that gives an idication that my wheels aren't the main cause of the problem.
will have to look esle where

[Fahad]

changed the lower arms as well yesterday..
again that did not solve the 50-60 vibration.
now i notice another vibration going 80 mph and above

today my mechanic will adjust the steering box and i will ask him to check the steering colmn bolt.

im running out of ideas (and cash) now

so far :

1- upper arms changed
2- tie rod ends changed
3- lower arms changed
3- all 4 tyres replaced
4- all brake pads and disks replaced
5- tried another set of original bmw wheels and tyres..did not work

whats next?
any ideas?

[BillionPa]

im still thinking wheel bearings

they are pretty cheap and yours are probably 14 years old and have been debalanced by corrosion.

replacing my front ones did wonders for vibration reduction, but my rear ones have not been, and i can tell every day.

[Fahad]

mechanic adjusted steering box
recheked all newly installed suspension parts
checked wheel bearings and hubs
test drove the car many times

steering is tighter now but the vibration is still there and kind of getting worse!

all mechanics in the shop ran out of solutions since they tried everything in the book!

now im thinking the new upper arms -which been installed lately- are fualty or something.. mechanic says that could be the case.
its all guesses and that means i will have to buy thrust arms from the dealer this time.. and if that doesnt solve it, i will go find me a clean v6 camry, throw a sport suspension in and call it a day :D

[632 Regal]

call bmaparts.com and get the thrustarms with the M/5 bushings, that stopped everything in front for me. went through countless cheap bushing thrustarms. Even the 750 bushings couldnt calm mine down.

[Fahad]

finally
50-60 vibration solved!

yes it was the front wheel bearings hubs (thanks BillionPa)

mechanic took the hubs to a turner shop to get them checked and balanced before buying new ones just to make sure they were the cause of the problem.

they were little bent (you could not tell by looking at them), so the shop got them balanced and mechanic installed them back.. i took the car for a test and wow! no more 80kmh vibration!

still have to deal with higher speed vibration though (130 kmh and above) which could be a center bearing/ drive shaft issue...(buy the way balancing the hubs redused that too)

for now i will celebrate the new smooth -below 130 kmh- ride :D

100kmh is the speed limit on our streets here anyway!

thanks to all of you guys
i realy needed to move on and sort some other issues :D