[s-cars] Good news - bad noose

[Paul Gailus]

I agree with Fred that it could be a loose control arm.
In my case it appeared to be more of a loose ball joint than
a bad inner bushing. But I would just replace the whole
control arm assembly w/bushing especially at your mileage.
I had the same symptoms (at a little lower speeds) and a
new control arm cured it.

I posted my interpretation of what might be causing this
on 2/26/05 under the thread:
Re: [s-cars] Strange front end vibration or shaking - 94 S4

But as long as you can make it go away I guess it really
doesn't matter exactly what is going on.

Paul

----- Original Message -----
From: Fred Munro <munrof at sympatico.ca>
To: Robert Myers <Bob at chips-ur-s.com>; s-car list <s-car-list at audifans.com>
Sent: Tuesday, April 26, 2005 7:27 PM
Subject: RE: [s-cars] Good news - bad noose


> Bob;
>
> Typical symptoms of a bad lower control arm bushing. There have been
several
> posts about the high speed sweeper shimmy - a search of the archives
should
> turn up something.
>
> HTH
>
> Fred Munro
> '94 S4
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: s-car-list-bounces at audifans.com
> [mailto:s-car-list-bounces at audifans.com]On Behalf Of Robert Myers
> Sent: April 26, 2005 5:30 PM
> To: s-car list
> Subject: [s-cars] Good news - bad noose
>
>
>
> Hi Y'all,
>
> Suspecting a blown RF strut cartridge I pulled mine (Bilstein HD).  I
> pulled out mu trusty BFPW and found I needed a BiggerFPW.  A four foot
> piece of pipe took care of that.
>
> The good news - the cartridge and the strut bearing both appear to be OK.
>
> The bad news - the problem leading me to look at the cartridge wasn't
> caused by the cartridge which could have been replaced under warranty.
>
> The problem: a severe shimmy in the RF wheel/tire (it feels almost to be
> airborne about once each revolution) during a high speed (85-90 mph) left
> sweeper.  There is also a slight imbalance in that spot which can be felt
> slightly at highway speeds.  The frequency of the imbalance vibrations
> closely matches the shimmy frequency.  The shimmy goes away if I slow down
> to 80 or below or accelerate to 95 or above.  My thinking was that a blown
> strut might be failing to dampen out the vibration when at the natural
> resonance frequency for the setup.
>
> Other possible problems might be:
>
> 1.      tie rod ends
> 2.      ball joint
> 3.      subframe bushings
> 4.      lower control arm bushing
>
> Getting in there with a pry bar and seeing if anything moves more than
what
> might be appropriate gave me no clues.
>
> The bushings are all original ~ ten years old and have traveled nearly
220K
> miles.
>
> What have I overlooked?  Any suggestions?
>
>
> _____
> Bob