Vibrating 40+ MPH???

[J30Guy612]

Ok guys, I need your help.

I was involved in a small accident, and the front passenger side wheel whacked the curb pretty bad.

Here's what I have done since then:

The tie rod was bent, and I replaced it with a new one.

Had a complete alignment done.

Put a brand new set of quite expensive tires on.

Had all 4 tires balanced about 3 times now.

What else would cause vibration in the steering wheel? The vibration isn't so bad in the car itself, but the steering well goes back and forth (left to right) a little bit when I hit speeds above 40MPH.

This is awful, the one thing I always loved about my J30 was the way it cruised, at any speed. I'm worried it may never ride the same again

[itsnever2fast]

rotate your tires front to back

[J30Guy612]

I'll give that a shot, but after the accident, I put four new tires on, wouldn't this correct the problem if it was tire related?

[95-J30tt]

yes, but what if the rim was cracked, or the rotor is slightly bent, you could jack up the passenger side, and rotate the tire manually, that might give you a clue. the next thing i would do is to get the front rotors out and machine them, mark the passenger side one, if it is bent, the shop will mension it ....... hope this helps

[Q45tech]

Bent hub, bad bearing, bent rotor, bent wheel. Bent frame, you name it.ALL or some of these

[J30Guy612]

Any suggestions on how to eliminate some of the possibilities?

After the accident, I forgot to mention - I did a complete brake job (machined all rotors, and replaced pads).

It sounds like I need to determine between the following:

HubBearingFrame

Would a bent wheel be a possibility, even though they were balanced perfectly? If the wheel was bent, wouldn't it still come back as off on the balance machine?

Thanks for all the info!

[DominickJ30]

Yea hte wheel is a possibility. Since it is out of round and out of balance now.

But with the steering wheel thing it sounds like you didnt tighten the tie rods enough.

[J30Guy612]

I had my father install the tie rod, maybe it wasn't tightened enough? Is this something I can tighten with the car on the ground, or something I'll have to do at th garage?

[freeze_drift]

Wheel should be noticable if it was bent. Did you replace the tie-rod end as well? You might want to check for bends on the control arm, or quiet possibly the sway bar on that side. Also check the strut tower area and make sure you didn't mess anything up there. Depending on how hard you hit will determin how far along the steering / suspension system you will need to check. My guess would be the tie-rod end, if you didn't replace that along with the tie-rod. They are 2 seperate peices. Either way, good luck with the problem. Don't lose hope, there is always a solution. It's just finding the problem, that's a pain. L8r.

Freeze

[J30Guy612]

I didn't replace the tie rod end, so maybe that's causing the problem. Anyway to check and see if that is actually the problem? Can you notice a problem by visually inspecting the tie rod end?

Thanks for the positive post, I was starting to think my J30 was never going to drive the same again!