99civ

Car is a 1997 4dr Honda Civic DX, power steering, AT, 110,000 miles.


So for a few months, I had some nice tire wobble on the passenger side at high speeds. I considered it 'clanking'... Felt basically like a wheel wobble but at times it seemed to feel metal to metal so I finally took the tire off and realized my tie rod looked like complete ****. Went ahead and changed the inner/outer rod on the passenger side. It felt better, alignment was way off but drove it to work for a couple days to determine it's success.

Here's where it get's quite annoying. It felt much better at "all speeds" and outside of the alignment being whack, I barely felt any shake in the steering wheel. A few days later the wobble/clanking was slowly making its way back. It's hard to explain it but I will make it as detailed as possible even to the point of taking pictures, video, and even drawings if need be and requested.

The steering play came back fully a couple days ago, if not even worse than before. First it was just when the steering wheel was tilted to the passenger(right) side slightly. A full turn does not do anything, just a slight tilt = wobble/clanking. Then it started during stopping but only when the wheel was slightly tilted to the left, which was correcting the alignment, because the car would pull to the right on stops so if I corrected it by holding it to the left'sh position, = wobble/clanking. Both of these proceeded to get worse as the days went on, even on low mph roads to work 45 and below. As this proceeded to get worse, so did the whole scenario as now the car completely is wobbling/clanking again at most speeds and most importantly, on de-acceleration. I have to consider it "steering" play over suspension because of the how the "steering" affects it...

Here are some quick notes...

- When at a stop and I wiggle the steering wheel back and forth slightly/rapidly, it clanks both ways...
- Passenger side tire has a fair amount of wear versus the rest. Even some marks inside the fender wells that looks like the tire has worn(maybe from before the tie rod was replaced..)
- Both front wheels have 10 and 2 oclock place and also at 8 and 4 oclock with the car jacked up in the air.
- I do not see any loss of power steering fluid though.

Any help appreciated guys... This is my DD and it sucks when your project slammed/no interior is a more comfy ride... Thanks again.
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ngh98civic

maybe the rack is wearing out and could be going bad. A guy i work with had a 92 or so acura 4 door and something in his rack broke sending him off the road and into a pole....then to the hospital...I would jack the car up and look at the rack to check for play. maybe the bushings are bad causing slop or the teeth on the rack are worn or maybe even broke a tooth idk without seeing it myself.

my car needed the tie rode ends to and after putting new ones on i had to do my own "alignment" basically just put the car on the floor roll it forward so the suspension isn't tweaked or not in normal driving state and measure accross the tread from one side of the car to the other (from the same spot on the tread) and compare the front side of tire measurement to the back side of tire. then adjust to get them close untill you can have it aligned.