Caboobaroo Posted December 21, 2007 Share Posted December 21, 2007 A couple days ago, I decided to finally replace the RF axle in my car since its been clicking and making noise for oh, 4500 miles now due to a busted boot. So I replace the axle with a NEW one from a local parts house along with doing some front brake work and some new radius rod bushings I've been putting off as well and now my car feel funny. Since the strut has to come off to put it in, I had to realign it as well, no big deal since thats what I do everyday. Get it set ot where I wanted it and now it has a weird vibration. I can feel a slight vibration at lower speeds but it really does it when I'm doing about 40mph around a long right hand turn, not left. It almost feels like the wheel is going to pop off all of a sudden. I made sure everything was tight before aligning it (axle nut at 165 ft. lbs according to my book at work). Currently running some cheap Les Scwab alloys with my 205/55R16 Hankook Ice Bears on it. Any thoughts? Is my new CV possibly bad? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WoodsWagon Posted December 22, 2007 Share Posted December 22, 2007 I've gotten two bad brand new GCK axles. Bad vibrations under load. Now that I have a new bad axle on both sides, I get interesting harmonics that set up. It felt like loose lug nuts at first, but after that I figured i'd just put up with it. It sucks. It shakes hard taking off hard at intersections, it shakes around 45-65 on the highway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daeron Posted December 22, 2007 Share Posted December 22, 2007 you have double checked your castle nuts? try taking the brakes off and inspecting them, check the rotors for warpage??? (even tho its vibrating without the brake on, just a thought) Steering rack boots OK? what about the ball joints and tie rod ends? Were you feeling any vibrations or badness from the bad axle(s) before they were replaced? Not necessarily the same as what you have now, but were the axles impacting the ride? If the answer is yes, I would be very sorely tempted to disassemble enough to rotate each tie rod end and ball joint and see what they feel like. If they don't feel awful sloppy, I would consider the "bad axle" diagnosis to be confirmed enough to warrant re-replacement, and if that fails then well.. let us know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
86BRATMAN Posted December 22, 2007 Share Posted December 22, 2007 Its the axle... Got a bum one for mom's legacy last year and it vibrated the car somethin bad on the interstate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caboobaroo Posted December 22, 2007 Author Share Posted December 22, 2007 I'm leaning to the axle since it didn't start this until AFTER I put the new axle, brake rotors/pads, and new radius rod bushings in. Then I gave it an alignment and voila vibration. I check out front ends and rear ends for a living since I'm the head alignment tech at Les Schwab in Redmond so I made sure (especially since its my rig) that I checked everything. I put new ball joints, inner and out tie rod ends in this setup when it I originally built it for my RX. Old axle made clicking and popping sounds but no vibrations (split boot had mass amounts of mud mixed with the grease though:-p ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
idosubaru Posted December 22, 2007 Share Posted December 22, 2007 it is not rare at all for new axles to have issues. that's why people like me recommend Subaru only or MWE. as far as axles go there really are no Subaru alternatives in my opinion. do a search on here and you'll see lots of new axles with issues. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daeron Posted December 22, 2007 Share Posted December 22, 2007 I'm leaning to the axle since it didn't start this until AFTER I put the new axle, brake rotors/pads, and new radius rod bushings in. Then I gave it an alignment and voila vibration. I check out front ends and rear ends for a living since I'm the head alignment tech at Les Schwab in Redmond so I made sure (especially since its my rig) that I checked everything. I put new ball joints, inner and out tie rod ends in this setup when it I originally built it for my RX. Old axle made clicking and popping sounds but no vibrations (split boot had mass amounts of mud mixed with the grease though:-p ) Well, then heck.. its probably not worth dickering with. Its easy enough to change the axles, and if they are under warranty then so much the better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gloyale Posted December 22, 2007 Share Posted December 22, 2007 Read my New gen post. Had an axle with less than a year on it shake the car like the control arm was busted, or a wheel was falling off. GD and others convinced me it was the axle, and they were right. I didn't believe so much shaking could come form the axle, but it did. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NV Zeno Posted December 22, 2007 Share Posted December 22, 2007 Yup, axle. Same thing happened to me a few years back. Replaced the axle, voila...nice-'n-smooth:headbang: Just my 2 bucks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caboobaroo Posted December 23, 2007 Author Share Posted December 23, 2007 Well checked everything else and its all tight. I think I'm going to deal with it since I leave tomorrow right after work for a 4 1/2 hour drive to my parent's house. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gloyale Posted December 23, 2007 Share Posted December 23, 2007 Well checked everything else and its all tight. I think I'm going to deal with it since I leave tomorrow right after work for a 4 1/2 hour drive to my parent's house. I have a feeling that it's not very good for the differential bearings to have a DOJ vibrating like that. And vice-Versa, I think worn diff bearings can conmtribute to premature DOJ failure. Although mostly it's just S...ty aftermarket axles. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edrach Posted December 24, 2007 Share Posted December 24, 2007 I have a feeling that it's not very good for the differential bearings to have a DOJ vibrating like that. And vice-Versa, I think worn diff bearings can conmtribute to premature DOJ failure. Although mostly it's just S...ty aftermarket axles.Ditto on the crappy aftermarket axles. The axles on my brat that felt like the transmission was falling out were replaced and the brat has since run over 40K miles without transmission problems; of course I didn't run the brat too many miles with those axles. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
idosubaru Posted December 24, 2007 Share Posted December 24, 2007 Well checked everything else and its all tight. I think I'm going to deal with it since I leave tomorrow right after work for a 4 1/2 hour drive to my parent's house. i'd fix this as soon as you can and not put it off like i did last year....read on...I have a feeling that it's not very good for the differential bearings to have a DOJ vibrating like that. the plastic speedometer gear might even be more vulnerable. i have a feeling that vibration can lead to destroying the *plastic!!!* speedometer gear in the front diff. that essentially requires transmission replacement..unless you're into rebuilding transmissions. if you've ever read my posts you know i'm known to drive with clicking axles for 50,000 miles. that works fine for the outer joints, but i tried it with a bad inner joint last year and it was vibrating horribly. my speedometer started to fail and then not work at all. ended up being that inner speedo gear in the front diff which luckily enough requires replacing the entire transmission to fix. i am fairly certain that all of that vibration caused that plastic gear to fail. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caboobaroo Posted December 24, 2007 Author Share Posted December 24, 2007 well if I end up eating a tranny, then I guess it'll get me more motivated to get my EJ swap done:-p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
STi 22B Posted December 27, 2007 Share Posted December 27, 2007 We had the same problem with one of our subies down under... well actually, it has happened quiet a few times We found it to be the inner cv joint on the axle... some of the aftermarket joints are made up with a tripod design bearing inside the cup. When we fitted either 1 to the left or right, we had vibration at low speeds and when we had replaced both sides, there was a terrible hominics throughout the whole car at higher speeds. Disclaimer: This may not be the answer... If not, blame global warming Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WoodsWagon Posted December 27, 2007 Share Posted December 27, 2007 i'd fix this as soon as you can and not put it off like i did last year....read on...the plastic speedometer gear might even be more vulnerable. i have a feeling that vibration can lead to destroying the *plastic!!!* speedometer gear in the front diff. that essentially requires transmission replacement..unless you're into rebuilding transmissions. if you've ever read my posts you know i'm known to drive with clicking axles for 50,000 miles. that works fine for the outer joints, but i tried it with a bad inner joint last year and it was vibrating horribly. my speedometer started to fail and then not work at all. ended up being that inner speedo gear in the front diff which luckily enough requires replacing the entire transmission to fix. i am fairly certain that all of that vibration caused that plastic gear to fail. The plastic spedometer gear doesn't connect to the front diff on the 5spd's. There is a worm style gear in the counter/pinion shaft back behind the gearsets. Notice that the spedometer cable doesn't enter the tranny up by the differential, but more back by the transfer case. For the vibrations to affect the spedo gear, you would have had to trash at least 2 sets of bearings holding the pinion shaft. You would have bigger problems than the spedo gear at that point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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