Ok so i just bought this 1990 Accord. Its a 5 spd with 232000km or 145000 miles. I have very little service history with the car, but it runs great and everything seemed ok on the 5 minute test drive i got to take it on.

So since owning it, ive noticed a few small things. Basically all added up, it feels like my wheels are loose. (no my wheels arent loose) Under braking from a high speed, the wheel vibrates, and i dont feel it in the whole car, or even in the pedal really, just the steering wheel. Hitting certain bumps same thing, and it just sounds loose in general.

The symptoms seem worse when turning, looseness on bumps is more noticeable etc.

Im having the car in for safety on saturday, and i havnt driven it that much yet, but i know there is something wrong with the front end. I havent had any front end problems on my previous cars so i dont know what any certain problems feel like.

Any ideas? Any suggestions on how to check for certain problems to narrow this down? how do i know if my rack is bad for example. Tie rods/ball joints etc.

Thanks
Jeff

 

Does your steering wheel vibrate when the brakes aren't applied? If it only seems to happen when you step on the brakes and the steering wheel bobbles back forth, I would suggest warped rotors. A real lame and not exact way to check this would be jack up one of the front corners, remove the wheel and spin the rotor (car should be in neutral). If the rotor spins reasonably freely, it MIGHT be ok. If it stops abruptly half way around, you know it has some warp. There are also tie rods, another lame way to check them is to, again, jack up one front corner and with wheel still on car, put your hands at 12 and 6 o'clock, try to 'rock' the wheel, and feel for excessive play. Also, a visual inspection of tie rods, sway bars, steering rack, etc. wouldn't hurt either. Look for cracked bushings, dry greas fittings, etc.
Oh, when you say it sounds loose, is there any clunking? This might be way off the mark, but I had a Datsun 280ZX that had a bad front strut. It wouldn't wobble or vibrate all the time but once it got sent into motion one of my tires felt like it was literally going to come off. But this was very noticeable, the whole car would take on the vibration and the steering wheel would travel back and forth in 2 inch increments! Took me long time to figure that out.

 

Make sure a front end man checks out your ride..then you'll know what the problem is and no one will have to guess at it...

WheelBrokerAng

 

Yeah slusher, the wheel vibrates, not only when i have the brakes on but a lot of the time. Originally i was thinking rotors too, but it dosnt wabble when braking from a low speed, i cant feel it when i have the brakes applied only lightly and slowing down.

I think ill pull the front wheels tomorrow and check some of what you've said.

Broker, Yeah as i said its going to a shop on friday, but i like to have a good idea of whats wrong before i pay some guy to tell me. Its in your best interest to know so you dont get taken. In this case i know the shop guy, but if i know my "tie rods" are done, then i know it fails safety and i can fix it ahead of time and not have to go twice.

Thanks, Keep em comin.

Jeff

 

when you're looking at the front suspension, if you see fluid or grease on/around the strut (usually you'll find a bunch of dirt caked onto it, if you see fairly clear fluid then you know you have a problem) but check and make sure that you don't have a seal out or going out on the front struts by looking for leaky fluid, however if they're gas then it's not that obvious... when you've got the tire off try and rotate the bolts by hand, just check each one, if you can turn anything by hand then that's obviously a problem too

 

Ok so i jacked up the car, on the front right side, i can move the tire at 6 and 12. I can see an "arm" that comes out above the tire and there is a bushing there, i can easily see that the bushing there is loose and garbage. im reading in the service manual right now to find what it is, First time working on front suspension like this, so i dont yet know what everything is.

My integra had torsion bars up front.... simple, i loved it.

thanks for your help
Jeff

 

Let us know how it goes.

 

OK, so I figured it was an upper ball joint, looked up the pricing for ball joints on http://www.autopartsonlinecanada.com/ and was pretty happy with a ~$30 figure.

So I went to canadian tire this morning to get an upper ball joint and they inform me that the accords dosnt seperate from the control arm itself... upper control arm $206.00 + tax.

So I was pretty upset, went to NAPA and got the exact same part for $88.00 What a difference a 5km drive can make. Just a warning that sometimes even the cheap places arent the cheapest and its always good to look around!

Thanks for your help, ill probably end up posting asking for help replacing it, but thats for another day!

Jeff

 

Glad you found the issue! It never ceases to amaze me how many people figure out stuff from this forum.... I'm sure that this place has saved people $1000's of dollars.... That's sweet, let us know how the replacement goes and if you've got questions!

 

OK so today i passed safety and Etest. Took the car for a safety knowing that the upper control arm needed to be replaced. I told the mechanic i knew it was bad, and that i had the part if he could overlook it. If not i would change it right away. He said let me look at it first, When i came back, he had installed it free of charge.

So for the safety and installation of the upper control arm, $67!

Sweet! I need the drivers side now too Though.

Jeff