Hey all,
In my '84 245 I noticed a new shimmy (in addition to my old LF clunking) in my steering and decided to check it out since the weather hit the 50's this weekend. At highway speeds, there's a vibration through the steering wheel when I'm steering on-center. As soon as I steer slightly left or right the shimmy goes away.

So my first thought is loose tie rods. I jack up the front and noticed a couple things:

(1) The LF tire has a tiny bit of play in it when I hold it at 12 and 6 o'clock and shake it. But it's tight when I try 3 and 9 o'clock. Could this be a bearing issue? A friend said you can usually pop the spindle cover off to see if there's play when I move the tire.

(2) The RF tire is tight 12 and 6, but there's a knock at 3 and 9. It sounds and feel like what would be the steering gear lashing or a loose rack, but I can also see a little bit of play at the outer tie rod joint when I wiggle the tire. Since the left side doesn't do it this not normal, but is that small amount of play (1 o 2 mm) the cause of the knocking? I can easily feel the knock when I hold the tie rod.

How can I check the inner tie rods and lower control arm ball joint?

Or the shimmy and the clunking could be from the same thing, which I suspect is old control arm bushings.

Thanks guys!