car: Honda Civic EJ8 EX

My left driver tire took a hit from an on ramp dip Now I got thumping noises when the front left gets sudden drops (lumps in the road, or pot holes) at lower speeds I felt my drive axel boot and it didn't feel ripped... do you think I blew a bushing? Or did a bolt just come loose? I don't think my shock blew cuz when I push on my fender it doesn't bounce easily and the right side has the same amount of resistance to my push.

If you're from the bay area and know east bay freeways, it was the on ramp/ off ramp from 238 west to 880 south on the left lane... to give you an idea. The end of the ramp on the far left abruptly ends so the car fell a couple inches on the left side.

 

up for help

 

About the thumping noise; have you taken it to the shop and had them look for the problem? I had the same problem and it turned out to be an axle bolt that worked itself loose; $8 fix at the shop.

 

No, it only happened saturday night, so I'm still trying to understand the situations that this happens.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Bigmojoj27 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">About the thumping noise; have you taken it to the shop and had them look for the problem? I had the same problem and it turned out to be an axle bolt that worked itself loose; $8 fix at the shop.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Axle bolt? Which bolt is that? Sounds like a bad CV joint to me.

 

CV joint?

 

Its the part inside the boot of the axle. You would probably want to replace the axle even though the cv joint can be replaced.

 

Yeah, grabbed a pair of axels for $50 off my coworker. 98 EX axels should drop right in unless Civic is giving me more incompatibility between 96-98 and 99-00

I realized there was black stains all inside my left wheel well, so me and my friend concluded that was my CV grease

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by jtchinoy &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Yeah, grabbed a pair of axels for $50 off my coworker. 98 EX axels should drop right in unless Civic is giving me more incompatibility between 96-98 and 99-00

I realized there was black stains all inside my left wheel well, so me and my friend concluded that was my CV grease </TD></TR></TABLE>

yeah that should work.. if it done pm me and ill help u out with what might be wrong! hope that works out dude

 

thanks, I will if I have trouble. Before I jump under my car head first saturday morning, have any warnings during removal? Is there a write up anywhere? My coworker said something about having to remove my tire/ disc assembly to get the axel out... that sounds like it'll force me to get an allignment Is this true? I don't know anything about how the axel is connected to the transmission and whatnot, I was actually just going to jump in and disconnect whatever looked like it was holding the axel in place... so a link to a writeup or actual directions would be great I have to go somewhere saturday afternoon, so this needs to be all done and good to go before then. I just searched :drive axels: and it came up with nothing useful

 

basically, unstake the axle nut, loosen, disco the shock fork, disco the lower ball joint (do not bang on the threads to pop it out and do not use a pickle fork), pry the innver cv joint out from the transmission (dont pull on the axle the cv joint will come apart) and then fit it all back together. The axle nut is 134ft/lbs.

 

careful, bc tranny fluid will come out of the axle hole.

 

You will loose a little transmission fluid on the side that doesnt have the half shaft. I am doing my axles tomorrow

 

Where exactly is the axel nut located?? and by disco, u mean disconnect right? 134 ft/lbs?! holy crap... Gotta ask my neighbor to borrow his impact wrench &gt;.&lt; How much tranny fluid will be lost exactly? And I was wondering if it's okay to drive on a ripped boot? I'm swapping to manual in december, so I was wondering if it would be okay til then

 

I was about to change my axel then I noticed there was axel grease all under the boot for the upper A arm/ camber kit. It was everywhere under, I don't think the splatter from the CV boot ripping could do this... is it probably my A arm boot that ripped and not my CV boot?

 

a arm boot ???????????? hahah

 

What's so funny? And I don't know what you want to call it... camber kit/ upper control arm... the boot on the ball joint is what has the black grease all over it.

 

oh ok sorry i read it wrong.
can you get pics man?

 

Unfortunately i cleaned up the grease trying to find a crack... from what I can tell, it cracked/ tore where the threaded bolt of the ball joint goes through the rubber. Think of it like all that dirty oil build up you get in your engine when there's small oil leaks and put that everwhere under the upper control arm boot. That's what it looked like.

 

the amount of grease that the upper ball joint holds is miniscule, but it can be the source of your noise. perhaps your camber kit is worn out.

 

ithink it will turn out to be a blown out shock. i did the same thing with mine.. actaully my g/f hit a center divider doing 35+ and blew the shock it was making a thumping noise for a while until i replaced the shock.

 

Why would my shock still give equal resistance to all of the other shocks if it's blown? and that wouldn't explain all of the black grease splattered in my wheel well my Camber kit can't be THAT worn out... I installed it in late June and had it aligned immediately after. In any case I ordered a skunk2 ball joint replacement, hopefully that's the only problem. I think my ride in general would be pretty crappy if a shock blew, and it doesn't bottom out at all. If I replace the ball joint, do I need an alignment? Since I'm disconnecting the knuckle from the camber kit to replace it.

 

after that described bump in the road you mentioned in your original post, they may be broken.

 

i got my money on a broken shock..

 

Aside from the noise, what's another way to check if the shock is blown?