1985-1998 [Subscribe to Daily Digest] |
At idle, my steering wheel would shake. Putting it into 'N' would even things out a little, but still not make the vibes go away. Then, it progressed to the steering wheel shaking at cruising speed on the highway. I think the vibes from the engine were being transferred to the steering rack.
The only way for you to find out if your mounts are shot is to inspect them.
The two uppers are very easy to do. Just pop open the hood and look at them. Both are on the passenger-side top of the engine. The dogbone (horizontal) one is attached towards the rear of the engine at the firewall and the other (vertical) one is attached to the engine and the other end of the dogbone one. Look for tears/separations within the rubber bushing in each one. Small tears are okay (though this means they are on their way out), but large tears are not. Mine were torn from the center all the way to the outer sleeve.
The two bottoms are more involved. You have to remove the inner fender liner on the passenger front wheel side to gain access to these mounts. Best bet is to go to quasimotors.com and read up on how to inspect these. What you'll be looking for is any separation of the rubber from the metal part of the mount.
The tranny mount can be looked at from the top, but is best looked at from the bottom. It is on the driver's side bottom, towards the front of the tranny. Ideally, you should remove the driver's side inner fender liner to get a close look at the mount. This style mount is more like the upper engine mounts, so you'll be looking for tears within the rubber, as well as if the rubber is sagging enough to be "bottoming-out" on the metal sleeve. This mount is basically sandwiched between the curve of the tranny case and the mount bracket that is welded to the subframe. No need to have this one pressed in or to remove the tranny front case (as was the way it used to be done on earlier models). It was a little tricky to get this bushing out since I had to raise the tranny as much as possible (which isn't that high since the battery tray gets in the way), as well as loosen the subframe and push down on it pretty far (using my foot on a crowbar). Then I had my wife (she loved me for this...) reach in and pull out the bushing.
In any event, the car is 100% better now. Definitely inspect your mounts and replace them if torn. You'll notice the difference!
Joe
posted by 12.111.48...
, Tue, 15 Jul 2003 06:52:18
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