[Healeys] Rear End Shimmy

Alan Seigrist Blue 100 healey.nut at gmail.com
Sun Jun 24 19:20:45 MDT 2007


No, I'm not talking about Christina Aguilera!


I have a very mysterious rear end shimmy at all speeds, whether in gear or
out of gear.

When going slow it feels like one of my rear wheels is out of round.  It is
somewhat severe and getting worse... to the point the car shakes quite a bit
at speeds over 40mph.  I can feel the shimmy in the seat of the car even
doing 10-15 mph.

I have checked for oil leaks around the rear hubs (there are none) but I
don't expect any because I had just tightened the spline lugs on both sides
just about a month ago.  No oil is leaking, so I know the lugs are tight.

I have a BJ8 with Cape's rear disc brake conversion kit, so it can't be
drums out of round.  I've looked at the discs closely and they don't seems
to have any scoring so it doesn't appear that the hub is loose, but It is
hard for me to confirm.

There is no noise or whining of any sort, so I don't think the rear hub
bearing is bad.

The only thing that I can think of is the hub's octagon fixing-nut has come
loose somehow and the rear hub bearing is now sitting in a slightly offset
position.

Any other thoughts before I start ripping the rear end all apart?

Alan

'52 A90
'53 BN1
'64 BJ8


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