We're not shy about working on JDM vehicles here at Overdrive in Richmond, B.C. At least 10% of our appointments are cars that were never sold in North America and thus servicing and especially parts sourcing can be tedious. With these vehicles, parts can often take weeks to get from Japan, even with express air shipping there may be customs delays. Understanding EPC (parts catalog) data, reading basic Japanese, and understanding cross references goes a long way to making your life easier for maintaining and repairing these vehicles.
With the JB23W and JB43W Jimny, and pretty much all Suzuki Jimny's and Samurai's, the recirculating ball steering is prone to what's infamously known as death wobble. The issue is not always consistent but typically at speeds above 80km/h, depending how you load the front end you may find that the steering shakes left and right quite significantly. If that's the case, you are experiencing death wobble. These cars generally don't drive amazingly at freeway speeds but with the wobble, they can be downright dangerous as the steering has a mind of it's own.
The Fix(es)
To start, we recommend removing the knuckle to inspect the swivel bearings on the top and bottom of the hub. These are the bearings labelled "45111B" in the diagram below. Over time, these bearings get worn out and develop drag and play. To access these bearings you must remove the front calipers, vacuum lines going to the front hub, king pins, and the dust ring/knuckle seal (45120)
Swivel Bearings
These swivel bearings (09265-15006) are not necessarily readily available in North America, but an alternative is to look for the 30302J bearing which is used in a number of industrial and automotive applications. It's a standard size bearing that you can find quite easily online that IS in fact stocked in North America. Once the knuckle and axle is out of the way, you can knock the old bearings out with a punch and tap them in with a rubber mallet. Be sure to clean the races before installing the new bearings. On the Jimny we were working on, 2 out of the 4 bearings were worn/leaking and had developed some rust around the race.
When removing the knuckle, this is also a good opportunity to clean and reseal the kingpins so you will need grease. You should also replace the axle seal since the shaft will be pulled out to access those top and bottom bearings. The dust seal and the 8 bolts typically don't need to be replaced but it would be a good idea to clean them before reassembly.
Axle Seals
The axle seal is commonly found on the older Suzuki Samurai which WAS in fact sold in North America so they're not hard to come by 09283-26016 is the part number and you'll need two of them. Do be careful however as this seal is often mixed with 3 variations with different thicknesses 7mm, 8mm, and 9mm versions exist. 8mm is the standard and 9mm is ideal for a good seal. 7mm seals are known to leak prematurely. SKF's 10173 for example is listed as a 7mm thick seal and would not be recommended. Timken or National's 222630 seal is an 8mm thickness and would be a better choice. Beck Arnley's 0523346 seal should also be 8mm but it's hard to confirm without seeing it and measuring it.
If that doesn't work
Suzuki eventually realized that the recirculating ball system does have a tendency to wander at high speed and to reduce slop/play in these steering knuckles, they developed king pin shims and released a service bulletin on this issue (search for Q-SN-004 to read the bulletin). Essentially, what this shim kit does is it's a washer that sits between the king pin and the aforementioned bearing so it increases load on it once it's tightened down. This minimizes slack by pushing down on the bearing more so it does result in premature wear on the bearings. Thankfully the bearings are not that difficult to replace so this is a worthwhile way to "tighten up" the steering on a Jimny.
For the vehicle we worked on, we did not add any shims, we aimed to reduce the death wobble at 80kmh and after just the bearings and re-greasing, we found the result to be adequate for steering feel. Suzuki recommends to start with a small shim on the top king pin only, this makes sense as the bottom bearing has more load due to gravity. The nice thing is that to remove the top king pin you only really need to remove the caliper bolts for access. It doesn't require pulling the entire knuckle and drive axle out again.
