My 1990 auto SC has had a bit of a vibration, so I took it to my hobby shop and put it on a lift a couple weeks ago.
I inspected the suspension and the only movement I found in the front wheels is the top to bottom movement I could see in the upper ball joint. And also noted driver side motor mount movement.
I changed my upper balljoints and just put in new motor mounts over the past week I had the motor mounts from advance auto, paid about 50 a peice if I recall corectly, and they were suppose to be solid.....I hope they are because that job was a bitch. I took the opportunity to remove the exhaust manifolds and port the collector, which I beleive also helped with the removal of the mounts, as there was more space to move around in there. Also changed the plugs (APP 2544 I beleive it was) and the car seems to be a little tighter in the steering deartment and seems to have improved power as well...
BUT, I still have the "pop" when turning hard left, and if I coast at really low speeds (like 5 mph or so) it almost seems to have a "limp" that seems to be comming form the front passenger side of the car.
Also, the vibration I was having seems to have decreased, but I still get the vibration around 70+ just like the gentleman stated above.
If there is a problem in my lower balljoints, wouldn't this be noticable when I tried "wobbling" the tires by hand in my inspection after replacing the upper balljoints? I noticed no more movement after replacing the uppers, and it seemed rock solid....
Something I didn't mention yet is that I have already replaced some other bushings, but I cannot remember which ones, as it was over a year ago; I do remmeber that it was a bushing that kept me from getting an alignment (they told me this when I went to get a tire replaced, but they couldn't align it becasue of these bushings) It was a set of bushing that I assume further misaligned the car when replaced. I beleive it was the ones that
Could alignment cause these symptoms... It doesn't violently pull in either direction, and I tried to leave everything as close as it was when replacing the bushings...
I haven't driven the car much and the tires still look brand new, without noticable wear. It has been sittig in my driveway, unregistered or insured for quite sometime now, only cranking and occasionally driving it down my street to keep things in check.
I plan on going to the firestone, maybe this afternoon and see about their lifetime alignment, I know firestone isn't always the favorite, but its like 100 for the lifetime alignment, I figure it could be worth it...
On the driveline, would I be able to see or feel movement in bad u-joiunts??? I did notice that the transmission crossmember seems to be a little twisted, and I couldn't tell if it was suppose to be like this or not... the mount looks OK, but the passenger side where it bolts to the undercarriage seems like it has twisted just a hair... I tried to tighten the bolt to make sure, but it seemed tight as heck so I left it alone....should I worry about that? it isn't loose at all..should I try to get a crossmember from the junk yard just in case?
Thanks for reading all this guys,
Sizemoremk