TomCat39

The car is a 95 CDM CX 3 Door Std 5 speed.

Some history on the wobbles can be found here in the suspension/brake section.

There doesn't seem to be much discussion over there so I thought I'd ask over here, what things could case a car to wobble.

If you didn't read the history bit, you can cross off tires, rims and front axles as all of those have been replaced at least once with no success of elimination. The wobble is still present at all the same speeds.

Of note, I suspect the wobble is always present but will resonate at certain speeds that are dampened by rubber parts or engine vibrations. This is just a guess though that fits the behavior. Also this behavior has been present all 3+ years I've owned the car.

What things can cause the car to wobble? Bent frame? Bent rear spindle(s)? Worn wheel bearing(s)? Bad bushings? Bad motor/tranny mounts? Bent LCA(s)? Bad ball joint(s) upper or lower?

Former User

Please define wobble and when it happens Tomcat.

TomCat39

In all honesty it feels like a bent rim. However I've gone to great lengths to rule that out. First I spun all the steelies to find the non bent ones and least bent ones out of 8 rims. I ended up with 2 straight and two mildly bent. I put the mildly bent on the back and the straight on the front, no change. Did this through two sets of tires and at least two tire rotations.

I've since just put alloy rims with a new set of tires last weekend and it still feels like there is a mild bent rim when driving 20 KPH or less. I will test tomorrow morning in the stop and slow traffic to see if it's still actually moving the steering wheel like it used to prior to the new alloys.

You feel the car shift a little to the side and then back. With the bad tires and rims it was much more pronounced in the end understandably. But even when the tires were good it was present as it is now on the mild side. It's why I wanted to get these rims on with another good set of tires first before I start digging deeper. I had to know it wasn't the rims or tires.

I feel I have exhausted that finally.

Also of note, on the old rims and two sets of tires previous the car pulled slightly to the left. With these wider rims and new tires, the car now pulls a bit more firmly but to the right. Not sure if being out of alignment can create the feel of a bent rim.

slomofo

iTrader: (1)

Moderator asking tech question?


I smell a troll thread.

TomCat39

You need that sniffer checked out. I have a 20 year old car and am not the aged veteran you are sooooo I ask questions. =P

slomofo

iTrader: (1)

I'm not falling for this one.


Trolololol.

TomCat39

That is fine. I ask that you refrain from derailing my thread though being your belief is counter-productive to my search for additional knowledge and education.

I do hope your belief doesn't inhibit others from providing me the assistance I am hoping to find here at H-T. I am still asking for knowledgeable people to educate me on other parts of the vehicle that can cause wobble that feels very similar to a bent rim.

Please know that I am grateful for the knowledge shared here at H-T, past, present and hopefully the future.

slomofo

iTrader: (1)

I was kidding man, but your other thread is somewhat vague. I suspect that you detailed the original problem, but edited it out as time went on.


If you suspect ball joints, why don't you check them? Lift the car up from it's jacking point, then support the lower control arm with a jack stand just below the strut fork and lower the car onto the jack stand. This will relieve pressure from the ball joint allowing you to properly check it.

Using a long pry or crow bar, place it under the wheel and using the ground as leverage, pry upwards to check for movement. You're supposed to get a dial indicator and place it directly onto the ball joint and measure any run out, but your eyes and common sense will be a good enough indicator on whether or not they're bad.


If ball joints are good, then see if you can find a vehicle lift available somewhere. From underneath the vehicle, get your pry bar and attempt to move everything you see that has a rubber bushing.

The majority of wobbles I see in Hondas and various other cars come from lower control arm bushings (the bushings that connect control arm to chassis, not the struts/ball joints), subframe bushings, and rear trailing arm bushings, and sometimes upper ball joints and/or control arms. Periodically I'll find other issues like flat spots in tires, improperly balanced tires, bubbles in tires, incorrect alignments, bent tie rods, frame/chassis damage, bent axles, broken shock/strut mounts, sway bar links broken on one side only, and various other issues.



That's what I'd normally write had I not already known that I'm being trolled here.

TomCat39

Nice ending there, got me to chuckle.

Thanks for the proper way to test the lower ball joints. I had lifted the car from the jack points and tried a crow bar but I didn't support the LCA to relieve the stress from the ball joint. The one ball joint moves freely by hand when popped and disconnected from the LCA and I can't tighten the castle nut without an impact as it spins. That's the reason I thought the joint may be bad.

It will be awhile before I can afford the new front wheel bearings and lower ball joints for the front end. Once I do that up, I will monitor and come back to your post for all the additional information you posted. Great resource there, thank you.

Cheers and have a beer for tolerating my trolling.

deschlong

iTrader: (8)

Unlikely. Jack the LCA up to put pressure on it and try to tighten it with hand tools. But, it's probably due to bunged up threads more than anything. Get out your tap and die set and clean up the threads. Had this problem on a tie rod ball joint. Super annoying watching it spin in place even with the impact. But cleaning the threads resolved the issue.

09chaplak

My alignment was pretty off due to smacking some coilovers and camber kit on my car a little while back. I had the side to side symptom you described but that was more-so at highway speeds. The car literally would not stay in a straight line with the wheel centered. Caster and camber were off a good bit but the most obvious sign was the tread wear. It looked like a hill starting from the outside going doing toward the center of the car. So if you're not experiencing any abnormal tread wear, you could probably rule out the alignment scenario. Couldn't hurt to get one though, caster probably won't effect tire tread wear as much as camber would.

ejv8s10

I had a similar problem on a '93 Hatch.
It turned out to be bad rear trailing arm bushings.

Sorry, but I am too new on this forum to mount a proper Anti-Troll assault, as is commonly done. The best A-T posters have been on the forum long enough to have their cars sorted out. LOL.

apexapexapex

iTrader: (1)

I also fixed my wobble issue with a new trailing arm bushing

TomCat39

I seem to have fixed my slow moving wobble issue and specific speed wobbles.

When I snapped the lug nut on my car, I ended up swapping both knuckles.

The "new to me" used knuckles, I put brand new lower ball joints in before the swap.

So I do not know if it was the lower ball joints or the knuckles themselves that was the problem, but either way..... No more body wobble going 2 mph in stop and slow traffic! Woooot!

The other possibility is that my trailing arm bushings have deteriorated even more so and are evenly busted and totally useless now. =D

tony_2018

I actually have a swaying issue. Not sure if its similar to your wobble. I do notice that my rack and pinion has a busted seal on the passenger side so that could be the issue. My bushing replacement is on hold right now because I'll be working on my little sister's db7. Same work plus some maintenance being done: rack, bushings and some interior replacement.

94 Civic Si

Glad to hear you nailed it!

Chance EG

Damn, year and a half update though lol.

Thanks for sharing the fix though for future generations

TomCat39

Yea, well I had been dealing with the wobble for over 4 years. Was just this past fall that I snapped the lug, and just the other day I decided to go at a snails pace to see if the car still wobbled.

So yeah, update was relatively quick after the fix compared to how long I had the issue.

94 Civic Si

Is there a solid diagnostic for bad lower ball joints? I have my car torn apart and am swapping out driveshafts w/ torn boots, so this would be the time to do it. I do not have any of the problems you were listing, but the body has >260k miles on it...

TomCat39

I never received a definitive answer to this exact question beyond the tire clunking bit with pry bar.

But I do know my passenger side ball joint was so loose that not only could I easily move it around by hand, but I had to use an impact gun to tighten the nut and then use jerky pulls with the torque wrench to reach 34 ft-lbs.

I did not have any of the up down play though which is the give away of a totally dead lower ball joint.

As tight as my new ones were, I personally feel if you can move the joint around with your hand with little to no effort what so ever, the ball joint is pretty worn.

94 Civic Si

Seems reasonable - thank you!

tamboo

car will pull to one side when braking:

What happens when your lower ball joint breaks (not fun!)

eghatch9295

iTrader: (1)

when in doubt, replace ball joints. they're cheap and usually need to be done on these old cars, anyways.