1933 Front Axle Alignment Manual /Wheel shimmy

[DaveZ]

In the for sale section I have listed the above mentioned Manual. I wrote this up as the manual doesn't mention a couple of important things about how to resolve the shimmy issue. This worked for me and the car drives like it should.

Front Wheel balance:

As stated in the Manual to begin any troubleshooting with wheel shimmy you should start with the wheels.  Obviously after that steering linkage etc. What they don’t tell you is that the Hub and drum was balanced when assembled by Cadillac. They just state the drum was balanced which is misleading. The hub is secured to the drum with bolts. It can go on two ways. If at any time someone had removed the hub to perform maintenance on the bearings and did not know they could have put the hub back on 180 degrees off. If this is the case you can balance the wheel, but if you take if off and don’t put it back on in exactly the same place it will be out of balance again.
Remedy
Before you can balance the wheels you have to perform a static balance on the drum and hub assembly. Take the wheel and drum off. Take the hub off the drum marking it with white out or something on both drum and hub. (Take out the bolts. You will notice two threaded holes in the hub. Screw two bolts in and the holes and that pushes the hub off the drum). Clean the bearings to remove all grease. Lightly oil the bearing with a sewing machine or similar oil. Reassemble the hub and bearing and put back on spindle. Back off on brake adjustment so there is no drag on the drum. Do not tighten the drum on the spindle as it must spin freely, but not so loose it wobbles. Spin the drum, enough to make a couple rotations. Put a place of tape on the bottom when it stops.  Spin it again. If it wants to keep going back to where the tape is it is not balanced. Take the drum off and take the hub off the drum. Put the hub back on the drum 180 degrees the other way. Put it all back together and repeat. The drum with hub when spun should never stop at the same place if balanced. NOTE: If the hub or drum was changed out at some point you may not be able to obtain the proper results. If that is the case you have to work it in the wheel balance. If you get the proper balance and want to, stamp a mark in both drum and hub so you know for future reference to service the bearings.
Wheel balance
After you balance the drums put the wheels on to perform a static wheel balance. Spin the wheel and check for in and out on the tire as well as high / low spots. You can’t get good results if the tires are shot.  If tires are good spin the wheel and put a piece of tape on the bottom when it stops. That is your heavy spot. And you have to place a weight on the opposite side. Wheel weights should only be placed on the inside of the wheel as adding weight to the outside increases the possibility of wheel wobble on solid axle. Spin the wheel again and now move the tape to the bottom again. You may have to add / remove a weight or put weight in a different spot. Repeat this until the wheel doesn’t stop rotating in one direction and slowly turns back the opposite direction to stop. (Like a pendulum) It may take time so be patient. When properly balance the wheel should slowly stop and never turn back the other way. 
If your drum and hub were balanced you are good to go. Disassemble everything and grease the wheel bearings then reassemble. If the drum and hub did not balance before you take the wheel off put a spot of white out, or something, on the end of a stud and on the wheel next to the stud. You will always have to put the wheel back on the car lining that up to maintain the balance. Always keep the tire pressure up.

[pmhowe]

Thanks for this post. It contains good information. My guess is that it is actually applicable to several model years. (That's a guess I would like substantiated, if you can. In particular, is it applicable to my 1935 V8?)

Phil

[DaveZ]

Solid front axles series number ending with a, b, c. D has the knee action and doesn't have the shimmy problem the solid axles do. 35 has the knee action. Just have to worry about the wheel balance bearings caster and camber, king pins steering components etc.