Front end wobble.

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Check with the people in your local hot rod scene. I'm pretty sure the is someone in your area that is competent with diagnostics & alignment. It took me almost a year to finally find someone to align my bracket car to the specs that "I" wanted. Most of the places were hit & miss & once or twice the car was just plain dangerous to try to drive, much less make a mid 10 second pass with it. Keep searching, there is a good shop out there.
 
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Those upper control arm bushings are completely hammered. The rubber appears to be torn free of the shells. That one even looks crooked, the bushing is over compressed on the top but looks to be pulled out of the shell on the bottom, which could mean it was pressed in crooked (and damaged the UCA). Either that or the mount needs to be trued up. On the ball joints the boots have been torn for some time, which means the ball joints may be worn prematurely.

Any competent alignment/suspension shop would tell you that the UCA bushings and upper ball joints need to be changed before you bother doing anything else. I doubt the car will hold a proper alignment with those UCA bushings alone. Replacing the bushings and ball joints isn't "throwing parts at it". Those parts are damaged and/or worn. They may not be the whole problem, but you can't rule them out and you can't move forward without fixing them. They're bad enough that they could be the source of your issue.

And good luck with finding an alignment shop that has a clue. There was one guy at a local shop I used to use, it was a major alignment/tire chain but that guy had circle track experience and understood that the factory settings were garbage and aftermarket parts changed things. When he left none of the techs even had an idea of what to do with my car, between the torsion bar suspension and the aftermarket parts they didn't want to deal with it. So I bought my own alignment equipment and take care of it myself. When I buy new tires I have it checked on the fancy rack to make sure I did it right with my bubble gauges, turn tables and toe plates, but I don't let them adjust anything.
 
Prob aligned to factory spec which is NEG caster.
Does it remind you of a shopping buggy front wheel ?
Get it aligned to these specs, for radial tires.
Good luck

E5C39AFF-EC9C-41A4-B151-77096AA66E48.jpeg
 
inertia said:
Prob aligned to factory spec which is NEG caster.
Does it remind you of a shopping buggy front wheel ?
Get it aligned to these specs, for radial tires.
Good luck

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That my be part of the problem and he will eventually need a proper alignment. But remember that the "wobble" isn't constant, even at constant speeds. A poor alignment would cause issues all the time. An intermittent problem suggest something is moving around or changing. The upper control arm bushes are easily bad enough that they could be letting the UCA's walk around, which would cause the alignment to change intermittently, just like the wobble comes and goes with hard acceleration like the OP described.
 
Kinda reminds me of " death wobble " that comes on at speed, after an upset, then goes away as speed reduces .
 
inertia said:
Kinda reminds me of " death wobble " that comes on at speed, after an upset, then goes away as speed reduces .
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Very well could be. Wiped out bushings and loose ball joints would only add to whatever else is going on. If in fact they aren't the whole problem. The "upset" could be shifting the position of the UCA with those bushings, changing the alignment. Settling it down may allow it to shift back to where it wants to be, so it behaves more normally.
 
Kipprc said:
Exactly. Its stays pretty bad till I actually stop and let the car sit. Then its gone again.
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inertia said:
Like a buggy wheel .
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The "buggy" or shopping cart wheel effect is just the caster. Bad caster is bad all the time, it would always wobble and you would have consistent problems at a given speed.

Working fine and then suddenly wobbling, and then working fine again once the car has been sitting for a bit suggests something important is moving around and changing things. Those UCA's are moving around because of those wiped out bushings would be my bet, made worse by the worn out, loose ball joints. Regardless, you can't fix the problem without fixing those parts, the bushings are clearly bad. Even if they aren't the whole problem by themselves they need to be fixed going forward.
 
looks like you have a lott of weight hanging on those front tires ,maybe you should start with a balance job at a different place ,
 
teringer said:
looks like you have a lott of weight hanging on those front tires ,maybe you should start with a balance job at a different place ,
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Hell of observation. I actually need one new front wheel (or get this one repaired). Its slightly bent out of round. It did balance out though. I have another one on the rear that is worse. It wouldn't balance out all the way (got it close). Both rears are getting replaced. I will deal with that bad wheel probably next month.
 
The bent wheels should have been addressed in your very first post. I'll bet that if the bent wheels had been taken care of "FIRST" that maybe you wouldn't be having the problems you are having now. Bent wheels do all kinds of funny & detrimental things to suspension components.
 
The bent wheel was eliminated from the equation a while ago. Swaped the wheels and the problem still manifested itself. Still needed them to be balanced out just to see how badly I needed a new full set. They all balanced out except for the one rear wheel. Its close, but not perfect. Again the rears are getting replaced. Custom wheels have been on order from Wheel Vintiques for over a month now.
 
Balancing will not make a wheel run true, it's never going to run in a concentric circle. The bent wheels will always cause problems no matter how much they have been balanced. I'll be willing to bet that all of the wheels have a bend in them. Someone has been selling you a bill of goods. Yes, you probably still have other suspension problems & that goes back to my saying, "find a competent alignment shop for diagnostics". Throwing parts at it as you seem to want to do is useless without TRUE diagnostics to find out what & where the problems stems from.
 
You may be right. I also acknowledge the difficulty of trying to help diagnose a problem over the internet. The wheels are being addressed. All the wheels do not have a bend in them, but the rears are being replaced. I can't make them get here any faster. There are plenty of alignment shops in this area, none of which I would recommend. I would still be throwing money at the problem trying to hunt down the one alignment shop with that one tech everybody would recommend. I have reached out to some of the folks I know that race. Waiting to hear back from them, but I know most of them trailer their cars to get work done that they don't do. I'm willing to bet alignment is one of them. This is a dead issue until I update this thread. Wheels and UCAs are on the way. Lets see if this eliminates the issue. Those were 2 known issues that need to be corrected no matter what. Alignment will follow that anyway. If you have some perfectly round wheels you wish to donate to the cause, let me know. Then we will know the wheels are good to go.
 
FWIW...when the UCA bushings look like that, all the rest of the bushings are going to be toast too. Unless they were replaced not long ago.

It’s not cheap or fun, but it seems to me it’s time to replace all the rubber components in the steering system. It’s easier to do it all at once than to do it one part at a time.

Just my .02
 
yellow rose said:
FWIW...when the UCA bushings look like that, all the rest of the bushings are going to be toast too. Unless they were replaced not long ago.

It’s not cheap or fun, but it seems to me it’s time to replace all the rubber components in the steering system. It’s easier to do it all at once than to do it one part at a time.

Just my .02
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This car was redone several years ago. Not by anyone one I know. The car is a 70 that has 73 components and most of the bushings are decent. Clearly some are no longer in serviceable condition. The UCA bushings are old and shot. The upper ball joints were newer (or at least the rubber was fresher), but something happened and both the boots are torn. The lower control arms are new with nothing torn. I want to replace them with the QA1 lowers, but I have no reason to at this time. Its the same scenario for the rest of the linkage. I would prefer to suspect wear or damage before replacing it. Started off not finding any play. Then I slowed down and saw shot bushings on the UCAs. Perfect time to replace them with an upgrade. I will go from there after that. I'm in no rush.
 
Dana67dart has it right with the toe in or out scenario I would almost guarantee it is alignment. Does the steering wheel wobble at quick acceleration,but go away when accelerating slowly. Problem is that one tire is pulling one way while the other is trying to turn the opposite way. At faster acceleration or high speeds there is less weight on the front of the car causing the tires to fight each other. Both tires are trying to go straight causing the steering wheel to go into what they call a death wobble. Not fun. First instinct is to hit the brakes slowing down the car adding weight and temporarily fixing it. At slow acceleration with full weight on the car the tires will balance each other out but will wear the rubber down to cords in just a few hundred miles because they are still fighting. Had it happen in my 37 hotrod. Hit a smooth rubber patch at a railroad track, car pulled right as passenger tire gripped pulled steering wheel through my grip and I almost rolled the car. When I checked tires with a tape measure. Front to front rear of tire to rear they where out over an inch. If the bushings and ball joints,and tierod ends need to be replaced. Do it, or the alignment shop wont be able to properly align it any way.
 
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The idler, pitman, tie rods and tie rod adjusters are all on order along with the UCAs. Im no expert, but either the LCAs are newer. They have minimal wear and no damage. I don't have a reason nor the money to replace them with what I want, right now. The other stuff will be replaced and and taken to a shop that was recommended to me last night. Local shop, not a big chain. The guy that recommended it is one of the guys down here that races often (in and out of state). I trust his recommendation.
 
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