[VetteAholic]

1992 Corvette. Front wheels dance side to side.

Only happens above 60 mph or so. My wheels are *suppose to be balance*

It's got new upper and lower ball joints.

Well when I get on the expressway and get it up to about 60 and above my steering wheel starts to softly tug back and forth( Right to left) When I'm on the street and turn my wheel slightly side to side, the response SUCKS!! I barely get any movement from the car.

Could this be that I have bad Tie rods??


P.S. Another thing, when sitting still and I turn my wheel side to side, I hear a clunking sound, it sounds like it's coming from my steering elbow though...


Update: I jacked the car up, checked for play in the wheel bearings and nothing. I checked to see if any components were loose, nothing.
I wiggled the tie rods, if that even does anything...., to see if they would move, nothing.

The clunking sound I do hear though it coming from where the steering shaft connects to the rack and pinion.

[VetteAholic]

Parts that are new/replaced:
Upper and lower ball joints, both sides.

Parts not replaced:
Entire front brake assembly
Inner and outter tie rod
Shocks

This is with the car at nearly 170k miles.

Could bad shocks even cause a steering tug?

I will re balance the wheels this weekend, man I hope it's that simple.

[crossflag]

last winter i replaced the 275/40/17 i had on the front with 255/45/17 . It ,s like driving a different car now. rarly scrape the air dam now either. before the switch my car did not handle that well. made a huge differance

[VetteAholic]

Originally Posted by crossflag

last winter i replaced the 275/40/17 i had on the front with 255/45/17 . It ,s like driving a different car now. rarly scrape the air dam now either. before the switch my car did not handle that well. made a huge differance

This issue I'm having started not too long ago, man I'm hoping I just chucked a balancing weight. I hope that' s the case, I also need an alignment, since I dropped the C4 I haven't done so. I filled my tires up to 35 PSI other day, that didn't change anything. I'll be sure to post the result, if I find it.

[Seabee 86]

If your car is tugging side to side its probably due to your toe angle being off. Pretend you're viewing your car form a birds-eye view; the top of your computer screen being the front of the car. The tires will either look like this(toe-in): /--\ or they will look like this (toe-out): \--/


And now that I just read you lowered your car, definitely get an alignment. That should solve your issues.

[95vette]

Andy, I am sending you a PM about this.

[VetteAholic]

Originally Posted by Seabee 86

If your car is tugging side to side its probably due to your toe angle being off. Pretend you're viewing your car form a birds-eye view; the top of your computer screen being the front of the car. The tires will either look like this(toe-in): /--\ or they will look like this (toe-out): \--/


And now that I just read you lowered your car, definitely get an alignment. That should solve your issues.

It did start happening after I lowered it. Though I think it didn't happen right away, it gradually got worse. I hope to get it aligned this weekend as well.

Originally Posted by 95vette

Andy, I am sending you a PM about this.

:thumbsup2:

[VetteAholic]

Okay here is another update:

I took the C4 to a shop where they rebalanced my front tires. The man there said I had 2 bad front tires(I currently have Nexens 275/17 up front, Nitto' s out back), when they were put onto the balancing machine, he said the wheels had too much of a hop. I'm no expert on tires to know what is too much of a wheel hop.

I then took the C4 and 2 other tires(Nexens that I had saved when I changed out my rear wheels to 17X11, I went to my trusty tire shop, unfortunately their new balance machine was broken and were waiting on tech service to arrive....no solution for now. I'll keep posting incase anyone runs into this problem and hopefully help someone narrow things down.

[Seabee 86]

"Wheel hop" is when a wheel is not balanced correctly. The side with more weight will have more inertia; every time it comes up, its in a sense "lifting" the wheel up. The faster the wheel spins, the faster it will make that du-du-du-du-du-du noise.

I don't believe this will have anything to do with the "tugging" sensation you described, but I've been wrong before.

[VetteAholic]

It rained last weekend so I slept in late and no progress was achieved. I've never been White water rafting before but I think that's what it feels like when I drive my C4.

The shaking feeling I used to feel on the expressway has now affected the street speed as well. I'll have to park it until I fix it, it's becoming a small challenge to keep straight.

I suspect my shocks are having some connection with this. Now I'm not sure how other C4's are but when I shut my doors the car shakes side to side a bit.

I also know I have some play in my steering shaft, I'll have to replace it.