I've recently developed a shimmy/shake in drivers front wheel at highway speeds. I'm confident I got it narrowed to the swivel pins. All tie rod ends are new(<2 weeks old) and front aligned,new steering stabilizer, wheel bearing re-packed 4 months ago. Shocks <1yr old. I am going to swap that tire with another to eliminate a balance issue. But the most tell-tale symptom is I can get about 1/8" play out of the wheel at the 12 & 6 o'clock position, but nothing at the 3 & 9 o'clock.

Searching past threads, I seen a few say you can remove shims off the lower pin,starting with the thinest, to tighten it back up. Which I am gonna do for diagnostics,but if it fixes it, a replacement will be in order.

My question is, try the lower first and/or only? Dont mess with the top pin? If that does fix it, should i replace the upper as well as the lower? It looks alot more involved.

As a side note, when that wheel starts vibrating, you can feel it readily, but not in the steering wheel, only a vibration. Normal?

 

Consider getting a shop manual or free Rave CD download, to guide you thru this necessary preload adjustment.
Are you using the new swivel grease or gear oil?

 

I read through rave on how to use a spring scale to check pre-load, which I will do when I replace them. But i notice rave says to adjust pre-load off the top pin, where's some on here say they've done it with the bottom pin.

Some here also say shoot for 14lbs, where rave says 1.16-1.46 kg's, which is far from 14lbs.

And yes, I've swapped grease for oil in the swivels.

 

Yes, sounds like swivel pins.

Because of the design of the coiler swivel ball housings you're actually better off to go ahead and get a swivel pin rebuilt kit. The bearings aren't as heavy duty as they are in Series Rovers and you'll end up needing to do it again before long if you just remove shims.
You will have different resistance to turning depending on if you have the swivel seal fitted or not.

Non-ABS is adjusted with a spring scale. ABS is adjust with a torque wrench. There are two different sections in the manual, one for ABS and one for non-ABS.

Shims are only on the top. There's only a gasket on the bottom pin

 

I strongly suggest that you replace the upper bushing, pin, bearing, shims, and lower bearing.

Merely removing shims is a hack job and might obscure bigger problems that you'd have found had you done it correctly.

 

Yup, I'm gonna wait 'til I get a rebuild kit. I pulled the lower pin, and as stated, only a gasket there. The top looks like a pain enough that if i'm gonna pull it apart, it's getting replaced.

And I saw the diff in checking resistance after goin back and re-reading it in the rave. Guess theres truth to the old saying, check twice, do once.