My '94 vtec prelude shudders really hard under hard acceleration and braking. It's more apparent when accelerating. I have to floor the brakes to make the deceleration shudder apparent. When accelerating, the entire car feels like it's trying to shake itself apart. This seems to be coming from the front, possibly front right. At first, I thought it was my wheel balance being off, so I got all 4 wheels rebalanced. The problem persists.

Later today, I'm going to try rotating the wheels to see if the problem moves to another area of the car. If that doesn't work, my ideas as to what could be the problem are:

- Bent axle
- Warped/damaged pressure plate/flywheel
- Damaged motor mounts

I think the motor mounts may have had it. The car has been through 4 HPDEs, lasting about 4-5 hours each. This may have finally taken its toll on the motor mounts. I feel this may be a distinct possibility due to the nature of how the problem started, which is described below.

Damaged clutch or axle does not seem to be as likely, as the problem occured suddently as I was driving. I was at WOT cresting a speed bump when I felt a bump and from then on the vibration was present.

Recent inspection of the motor mounts shows the motor torquing around a LOT more than it seems like it should. Revving the motor by moving the throttle cam quickly results in about 0.5cm of movement in the front torque mount. Having the hood open and having a friend watch as I dumped the clutch from low revs (1500ish) resulted in a reported 10-15 degrees of torque in the motor.

In conclusion, I'm wondering what the usual torquing in the motor could be, if anybody else has had this problem, and any further insight into the problem. If anybody could confirm whether or not the motor mounts are the clulprit, that would be helpful too.

 

My fathers car had the same problem. It would shudder at idle and cruising speed, and shake violently if you really got on the gas. It ended up being the motor mounts. I think the left front motor mount was completely broke, and the other one was loose. Should be pretty obvious if you look at them. I would check those first and go from there.

 

How many miles on the car? Do your motor mounts have inserts?

While you were revving and clutch dumping, why didn't you just take a few extra minutes and check your mounts out? See if one was obviously cracked or if a bolt had worked its way out...

 

Front mount (torque mount?) right in the center of the car is definitely torn. Not sure about the rear one, but my hopes aren't too high for it either.

The car has just over 80k on it.

 

I had a similar problem and changed the inner and outer tie rods it went away... was kinda expensive it is a dealer item.. Not too hard to to though... Having a helms manual is a tremendous help... hope this helps.. good luck..

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by 94svtec &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I had a similar problem and changed the inner and outer tie rods it went away... was kinda expensive it is a dealer item.. Not too hard to to though... Having a helms manual is a tremendous help... hope this helps.. good luck.. </TD></TR></TABLE>

Bump for this. I replaced the motor mount last night, and the lateral vibration became twice as bad. The car is approaching undriveable.

Do you have the page number in the FSM for the tie rod end replacement? Looking at the exploded diagram of the steering gearbox on 17-105, I can only find one tie rod end per side.

Also, I'm having trouble understanding how the tie rod end fails. It seems to be just a solid piece of metal. Can anyone give any insight into this as well?

 

the outer tie rod ends have a sort of "ball joint" on them, the rubber deteriorates and the joint becomes loose from grit wearing away at it.

not sure how inner tie rod ends fail, but i have heard that they can.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by syntax420 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">the outer tie rod ends have a sort of "ball joint" on them, the rubber deteriorates and the joint becomes loose from grit wearing away at it.

not sure how inner tie rod ends fail, but i have heard that they can.</TD></TR></TABLE>

When replacing them, should I simply replace the ball joint, or replace the entire tie rod end/boot/joint assembly?

 

checking the condition of the tie rods is a very simple job. Simply jack the front of the car up by the lower control arms when its up it the air grab either side of the wheel and shake it side to side. There should be no play or movement in the wheel. Check ball joints by shaking top and bottom, hope this helps my 93 Si had both inner tie rods go bad, but no shaking though. good luck

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by BlackLudeSi &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">checking the condition of the tie rods is a very simple job. Simply jack the front of the car up by the lower control arms when its up it the air grab either side of the wheel and shake it side to side. There should be no play or movement in the wheel. Check ball joints by shaking top and bottom, hope this helps my 93 Si had both inner tie rods go bad, but no shaking though. good luck</TD></TR></TABLE>

Ball joints are checked by shaking the wheel vertically, tie rods by shaking horizontally?

 

Figured I'd ask....

Have you tried just getting an alignment first?

 

I got outer tie rod ends from napa for about $30 each, and that included the joint, boot, and rodend. i wouldnt even think about just changing the "balljoint", i dont even know if its possible.

Yes, ball joints are checked by shaking vertically, tie rods ends by shaking horizontaly

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by LudeyKrus &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Figured I'd ask....

Have you tried just getting an alignment first?</TD></TR></TABLE>

Car aligned, wheels rebalanced.

Poor alignment wouldn't make the car shudder this much, if at all.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by syntax420 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I got outer tie rod ends from napa for about $30 each, and that included the joint, boot, and rodend. i wouldnt even think about just changing the "balljoint", i dont even know if its possible.

Yes, ball joints are checked by shaking vertically, tie rods ends by shaking horizontaly </TD></TR></TABLE>

I'll check them tonight. Thanks

 

its best to have a helper shake the wheel, and i mean really rack the thing, and get under there with a light and see where the play is comming from.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by syntax420 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">its best to have a helper shake the wheel, and i mean really rack the thing, and get under there with a light and see where the play is comming from.</TD></TR></TABLE>

I'm guessing I should get the steering wheel locked before I do this?

 

no, just jack up one side at a time. you will be able to see when the wheel and steering wheel are turning and when they start to shake it in the other direction, thats when youll see the play.

But i think you should investigate the condition of your axles if you are getting vibrations that arent from unbalanced tires or brakes.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by syntax420 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">no, just jack up one side at a time. you will be able to see when the wheel and steering wheel are turning and when they start to shake it in the other direction, thats when youll see the play.

But i think you should investigate the condition of your axles if you are getting vibrations that arent from unbalanced tires or brakes.</TD></TR></TABLE>

The vibrations aren't present when I'm not accelerating or decelerating.

 

That really sounds like some sort of driveline problem, thats almost always what causes the problem your stateing. However if you had the car aligned even a half *** alignment place should have noticed any loose parts. Thats the first thing you check before you align a car.

 

You also might want to check for a misaligned/shifted motor mount, if the motor is sitting funny that might also cause a bad vibration on acceleration.

 

There's definitely vibration when I'm braking hard, which leads me to think its neither the axles nor anything motor/motor mount related.

I'm going to be checking the tie rod ends in a few hours.

 

Let us no how it turns out, inner tie rods for mine where dealer only $68 a piece, cheaper that something big broken i guess good luck

 

Worst case scenario being the axles bent or something, I'm not too worried. Refurb'd axles are only $80 from advance anyway.

 

Problem found. It's the passenger side axle. My theory is that it was warped slowly over the week that my wheel was unbalanced.

Tie rod ends checked out fine.

Also, I'm having a slow scraping sound coming from the driver's side wheel well or wheel hub area. The sound manifests the most when the wheel is turning slowly. It sounds like a bent dust shield scraping on something. Definitely metal on metal contact. I'm going to take my dust shields off tomorrow to see if that solves the problem.