Shake in Front-End during acceleration

[slowoldman]

OK here is the deal. I bought the 95 AWD Talon about 3 weeks ago. It had a shake/shutter in the front. I installed GC's and Konis lowering it about 1-inch. Re-alligned all 4 wheels. It handles great but under acceleration it has a shake in the front that I feel in the steering wheel (and really the whole car as well). It isn't the wheels or tires I checked those. There are two things I noticed during diagnosis that disturb me.

1: When I put all four corners on jack stands start the car and put it in 5th both back wheels turn fine. Only one of the frons do though. If I jam a a rubber block under the right fron the left then turns.

2: The drivers front wheel turns much harder that the passenger side.

This is diving me crazy. I am leaning toward either viscous coupling or Motor Mounts.

Anything else you can suggest before I take it to the dreaded Dealer? This is my first AWD and all my other cars have been RWD so I am learning.

 

[UnWoRtHy]

Could be bad CV joints, or possibly tie rod ends. While it's up in the air with the front wheels pointed straight, grab one of the front wheels and try to turn it (not round and round. the other way). If you CAN turn them without much effort, that's not a good sign. I can't honestly say that I'm a front end expert, but...I've only ever driven front wheel drives. Take a look under there and make sure everything looks good. Torn CV joint boot could be a dead giveaway. Maybe wheel bearings? Does the car pull one way or another while you're accelerating?

If you do end up taking it to a dealer, while you're there, have them check and make sure all the recall stuff on your car has been done, most notably the transfer case issue. Good luck. When in doubt, take it to a mechanic.

 

[slowoldman]

That makes sense. I did already check that though. CVs are good and tie rods ends are tight. It doesn't pull under acceleration or at a steady speed. It does pull when I brake hard but that is a brake problem. (Rotors need to be turned) I am putting Baers on it next week.

Thanks for the ideas though.

 

[Damned Talon]

the axles may have no play in them but if you were to remove them and move the joints individually you may find that there is a hard spot (partially siezed) in one of the joints. which would cause the vibration when the car leaps during acelleration.
inner tie rod ends could cause this also and they dont show play with the car up in the air. they usually show play with the car on the ground with you watching, feeling for play while someone else turns the steering back and forth.

just a thought.

 

[slowoldman]

I dropped it at the local shop.

I'm not sure why I didn't spot it but he said the carrier bearing was shot. I will pick it up tomorrow and see if that helped.

 

[Stop&TurnFreak]

I hear Evos are the way to go !!!


Just poking fun, hope you get it worked out, wings Monday?

 

[slowoldman]

Evo Evo

You think you are sooo bad!

You know what?

You are!

I still Like the even though I stll have to replace the Axles.

 

[slowoldman]

Just want to post a follow up in case others run into this in the future.

I have been fighting this shake for 2 years. I had replaced everything over these years including Ball joints and all suspension parts. I started with the axle/cv joint. I just found that the remanufactured cv-joint was not done right. I pulled the drivers side cv apart and found that there were scars inside that would catch the bearings. The problem was that it would only catch under pressure. With it out of the car it felt great.

The moral of the story is just because they say it is rebuilt if it was really messed up before the rebuild it will probably be bad after too.

 

[toybreaker]

There are several drivelive shops here locally that "rebuild" c.v. axles....

I've been to them several times with their failed products that were installed on customers cars by reputable shops. The shop owners turn to me after they install multiple reman axles...only to have the same proble re-occur. As an interesting side note, all brands seem to be about the same as far as failure rates...

I did some investigation, and determined the root cause of most failures.

When the c.v. is manufactured, the ball tracks are precision ground and heat treated at the factory.

When the c.v. fails in service, usually due to a torn boot/lack o grease, there is substantial wear in the ball tracks, usually worse in the one area where they run with the car going straight ahead.

The driveline reman. procedure involves grinding the ball tracks oversize, and fitting new oversize balls. In theory, this should work. The problem is the factory heat treat is fairly shallow, and is usually removed by grinding the ball tracks oversize. None of our local rebuilders re-heat treats the units, so it's only a matter of time before the high load/small surface area contact of the balls begin to wear little divots in the ball tracks...resulting in a vibration like the o.p. had.

I have argued this point several times with shop owners. Their usual response is something like.."I've been using remans for years...and this is the first problem I've had, The customer must be abusing the car."

I usually just walk away at that point. They come with a lifetime warranty after all, and the easy fix is to just swap in new one...

However, when my dad's 85 tercel 4x4 wagon was on it's fifth set of axles at ~280k miles,
I got bitched at pretty voiceferously...and it made me investigate the cause. I took the failed unit back to the reman facility and asked for some tech help. At this point, the gentleman tried to buffalo me with some crap about high horsepower and abusive driving.
I was laughing so hard he got confused. It was a freakin' tercel for crying out loud!!! And, my dad's a scientist, and the car doesn't ever see more than half throttle...ever....

They do occaisionall go to the mountains, and that requires some pretty tight turns in low gear to negotiate the roads that lead to the cool places. In low gear, and turning tightly, the load on the balls is too much, and presto, real time brinnel test.

In order to return peace and quiet to family gatherings, I went to the junkyard and pulled some factory axles from a 175k wreck, cleaned and rebooted them, and that was the end of the problem.

The dsm platform has significantly more power than a tercel, so your mileage will definately vary with a reman axle....use at yor own risk...