tb13

I've got a 93 SC400 that has a weird front end issue. The car dives straight, but when I hit a bump the steering wheel will shake back and forth. The severity depends on the bump, it can be a small shimmy or a really nasty shake, but the car continues driving straight through either.

I've jacked the car up and tried to feel out any play in the front end, but it is all solid as far as I can tell. The steering rack bushings are in good shape along with the rack boots and tie rod ends. Any input on figuring this out? It's getting really annoying...

oldManTan

you sure the rack bushings are good? you can't really see the small ones cz the washers on the bolts cover them. i recommend changing them to some polyurethane ones, they're only 30 bucks whiteline ones off ebay. if that doesn't fix it, your control arm bushings could be bad.

RXRodger

iTrader: (2)

It sounds like front lower control arm bushings to me, more specifically the ones in the rear of the control arm. But it could be a strut/shock binding, can do the same thing.

sc4hunnit

The two above responses are definitely worth checking out? How many miles are on the car?

INTIMAZY

iTrader: (5)

It's the steering rack bushings. Even if your lower control arm bushings were non-existant and your car wandered on the roadway across the yellow lines, you still wouldn't have steering shake unless those bushings were destroyed too.

Learned that myself when I replaced the steering rack bushings with aluminum bushings but still had 240k mile LCA bushings.

RXRodger

iTrader: (2)

Not so, just had this condition on one of my SC's and it was worn lower control arm bushings. They were busted up pretty good but not gone. So, it can be LCA bushings.

SCFactory

iTrader: (2)

Agreed, either rack bushings or LCA. I have some used LCAs for sale and also have a pair of LCA with New pressed bushings.

tb13

Well I got around to checking over everything again and it seems all of the bushings have degraded quite a bit, even though you can't see it at a glance. I'm going to order up poly control arm and rack bushings tonight. My front strut mounts were also dead, but I installed some coilovers so thats been adressed. I appreciate the help and I'll report back once they are all replaced

tshawn63

You don't by chance STILL have those LCAs?

SCFactory

iTrader: (2)

I do not I only have a used driver side at the moment