Thread: Chassis Vibration Help

I'm back... I forgot my phone when I headed out yesterday, and was almost to Ft. Walton when I realized it. Hit me again when you have a second, I'll be at the house all day today...I think.

I suspect the job of balancing was less than stellar, as evidenced by the improvement you noticed after a rebalance. I kinda think you may have a worn output bearing, as hubs have to be pretty loose to cause vibration; I am pretty sure you'd hear it before you felt it. Could be a CV, despite being new, but a source of trouble on 60/65Es has always been the output bearings. The better news? You get to split the case to replace 'em. Now if we're talking differential output bearings, that's a little better news... When you say you noticed the shaft had a little play, what shaft are you speaing of exactly? Lemme dig up a diagram...


...or 5. See anything that looks like what you're talking about?

Well, today, I just gave up and replaced the 3 week old NEW CV axle(and seal of course)... and that seemed to have fixed 99% of all the vibrations (I'm not sure I'll ever be 100% happy, but that's ok). The parts counter guy said the one I got was proabably made on a Friday and figured the axle was just a bad one. The inner joint had TONs of play, especially for only have 1-2000 miles on it, and only 3 weeks of driving.


...hopefully this one will last my 1000 mile round trip to Orlando....geez!

Also, I don't recognize anything in your diagrams, mostly because that looks like the passenger side to me, but I really have no idea. I have been working on the driver's side.

I'm talking about the shaft that the CV axle joint connects to that the seal surrounds. I don't know if that is supposed to be rock solid or not, but it'll wiggle a little bit (not quite able to touch the inside of the seal, so it's probably normal).

Here's a pic of the area. Don't worry, it's not my leaky car in this picture, but it's the quickest one I could find.


now that this is hopefully taken care of I can go spank the M3 at work (It's a brand new one...) ...or not, but I'll give it my best shot.

I have enough nitrous parafanalia laying around to accomplish the V8 Beemer spanking post-haste.

Well, this thing's never gonna be perfect. It was a much better ride, not as harsh, but it's still goin..., kinda like a massager... I wonder if any of the wheel weights fell off.

...also got to replace the battery on vacation, that was a blast!..... yeah, just what I wanted to do on vacation....

There's a CTS-V and a Porsche Cayenne Turbo for sale less than a mile from my house calling me.....CTS-V is still under warranty and if this happened, I would just have the cadillac mechanics fix it for free........ oh well. I need to figure out where I'm moving to before I do anything drastic with the grand prix! I don't really intend on buying anything else right now.

Don't even get me on the V-series bandwagon... You know what I'm gonna say.

yeah... we should finalize what we are doing this weekend.

This is the most awesome problem I've ever had..... The &^%&(*)(*^&%&^ vibration is back. I'm thinking that the output shaft (or whatever the CV axle connects to) is not supposed to have any play in it, and that play is causing the CV axles to go bad.


hmmm... change out free cv axles every month (lovely lifetime warranty).... or rebuild the tranny.... hmmm.... decisions, decisions...

ok, so here's a picture of what I'm talking about. It's the shaft on the driver's side. I've only been dealing with the driver's side.

(It's yellow)

Yeah, you should have minimal to zero runout there. I'm having a similar issue with the Sdn in ATL. Yay us.

Here's what I got back from Trannyman in a PM. He own's triple edge performance, a transmission sponsor on here.

"The output shaft just floats until the cv is installed, there is nothing at all that supports it. The inner cv flange/race rides inside a bearing in the side of the transmission and when there is a problem here the axle seal will leak pretty bad when driving. "

Well, it's not leaking, so I guess it's fine......... well, I guess I'll just put another new axle in this weekend since the vibration is starting to get worse again, and get more annoying.... argh.....

Ok, I got some real pics for you.



Looks like #510 to me in the next pic:

Right, but the bushing could still have excessive tolerance... Lemme find the exploded pics of the build I did... Hold dat thought.

I know it's been a month, and yes, the problem is still there. However, it's subtle (hopefully that's a good thing)

Here's a post that I found, the last sentence sounds about right.... as soon as you pull the CV shaft out, it pukes fluid, and the input shaft is loose... I just hope it'll last the 3000 mile trip I'm taking on Tuesday. No, I don't have time to get a rebuild...

Originally Posted by Swash

Could be tires - could be input shaft - could be warped/bent rim - could be could be could be.

First thing to look for when you think a halfshaft might be a problem - grease. Check inside the wheel wells for any grease on the control arm - and on the sway bar - it tends to accumulate on the outermost sway bar bushing. Half shafts tend to "let you know" when they are going out - you will either have a noticeable noise when turning corners, or even when just cruising down the highway. In corners, you'll hear a sort of "wharble" - sounds like something is out of round, and is often accompanied by tire squealing - on the highway it will sound like a growling noise - almost like excessive road noise. You may want to check the tie rods as well - jack the car up, grab the tire and 3 and 9 o'clock and try to move it left to right, do the same at 12 and 6 o'clock. If it moves much at all - that could be your culprit- and yes it can/will cause vibrations.

If you check those and all is well - or don't have any of those other symptoms...get the tires/wheels balanced - make sure to have them tell you what corrections they made and where. If that still doesn't fix it - I would recommend pulling the driver's side halfshaft and checking the input shaft on the transmission - if it starts puking fluid as soon as you pull the halfshaft off - and the input shaft is loose - there is your problem...and I'm sorry. At that point - call Trannyman.

-Swash

I've decided to swap out the driver's side axle one more time today before the trip simply because it's free. While I'm in there, I'll get a video of the input shaft.

After reviewing PMs, Trannyman said the input shaft is floating and held up by the CV axle, so I don't know if Swash's post (the one I just quoted) is entirely true......



...off to work!


Then again, I just realized the shop is closed on Monday's and Tuesday's..... Well, guess we'll have to see if this will hold up for the trip as is!

How do I keep mising the updates on this thread? This site hates me, I swear- Where ya headed? Like, tomorrow?

I'm moving to Kentucky tomorrow... gonna spend Thanksgiving through New Years in Colorado... sometime after that... Iraq.

You thought Allabammie was sweet? Here ya go...

YouTube - Dueling Banjos Deliverance

Regardless, be safe, tell the fam PCB says hi.

funny thing.... I moved from Alabama to Tennessee and Colorado, and the vibration went away. I wonder if the roads I was driving on were just that bad in the small town I was in. I'm also thinking this is the case because the problem showed up as soon as I got there and lasted the entire 6 months I was there.


Matt, the CA bushings at least appeared to be ok... visually at least. The car is going to sit in storage for a year starting next month, so I'm done looking at it for now, especially since I'm only driving it once a week while I'm at home in Colorado and not working. We're cruzing around in the family car... our Escalade