So my ongoing problem with my front end consisted of the following symptoms:
Vibrations and shimmy in the steering wheel both low and high speed
feeling little play in the steering wheel but the wheels themselves feel loose. At higher speeds, it gets a lot worse and there is A LOT of bump steer. A dime on the road would cause the wheels to jerk side to side. I've tried different ride heights but the higher I go the rougher the ride is and more bump steer. The coilovers are not blown-the pistion retracts fine in all of them. I did the dry pavement test [car parked] of the steering by having it running and moving the wheel to see if it had any play but as far as I can tell as soon as I move the steering wheel the wheels respond with less than 1/2" of effort.
I've been to a handful of shops already and nobody can figure out whats going on. I replaced a whole bunch of stuff under the hood including brand new Nissan bearings and hubs, rebuilt the axles, new thrust bearings for the strut mounts, new end links and bushings etc. Almost the whole front end is brand new yet I can't track down the cause of this problem. All the shops put my car on the lift and say everything looks fine and even on test drives they don't notice anything weird because they have no experience driving a lowered b15 with mods.
In all honesty I have more experience diagnosing a modded b15 than they do but the cause of this problem escapes me.
This is the update as of two hours ago:
- No play in wheel bearings
- No play in ball joints
- The steering rack is not moving around when I move the wheel side to side so the bushing is good
- I looked at the actual rack by pulling the boot back and looking at it while the wheel was turned and there is no evidence of up and down movement
- New Nissan end links and bushings are fine and in place
- Car aligned a few weeks ago
- No abnormal wear on the tires [33 psi front, 30 rear per owners manual]
- Rims recently balanced with no problems
- Axle shafts rebuilt over the summer they were easy to move before the rebuild but now it feels nice and tight
- Brake pads show no abnormal wear and rotors don't show any signs of warping [although I didn't check with a caliper
- Car lowered with 1" of thread left on the Tein Basics per Tein's instructions
- Thrust bearings replaced a few months ago, strut mounts don't appear damaged
- ES Control arm bushings and Moog ball joints installed about a year ago
- All motor mounts replaced with brand new Nissan ones over the summer.
- New Moog inner and outer tie rods a few weeks ago
I drove it today and noticed the loose steering feeling is still there, it's to the point where it really does feel scary to drive. There seems to be a lot of torque steer even when taking it easy. I redlined first gear to see what it felt like and I noticed the wheels felt all over the place, very loose with a lot of wheel hop and torque steer.
I'm getting tired and broke taking it to shop after shop because they all say "everything looks fine" and can't find the cause of the problem. I've had this car for the last 5 years with similar rim, coilover, ride height settings and have not had any issues until recently.
The major things that I recall having done before this problem started was the ES Control Arm bushings and Moog Ball joints. They were installed by someone I know and as far as I could tell, I don't think he had a press. I don't know how he installed them because I wasn't there at the time.
The other major thing is I converted the car from automatic to 5 speed. The only thing that would make me suspect anything related to this might be a flywheel issue or an axle issue causing vibrations to the wheel? but would that cause loose steering?
I'm completely lost at the moment and any help is appreciated.
