87ROCZ

iTrader: (3)

Ok...last summer I noticed that my rear drivers side wheel sorta "wobbles"...I never paid much attention to it because I was putting my car away for the winter.

Anyway... a couple of days ago I was out cruising and when I stopped my buddy that was driving behind me made a note of it... he said " Man is your wheel gonna fall off or what??" .. I said " What are ya talking about!"... he said " Well it looks like your wheel is wobbling"

So this evening I got my girlfriend to drive my car and I drove hers and sure enough the wheel looks like it's wobbling back and forth... when you are looking at it from behind the tire looks like it is moving side to side.

I can't feel it when I am driving either slow or fast...I had a new set of tires installed about a month ago and they balanced properly.

So my question is " Is it that my side axel is bent?" or " Is the rim bent?"

If the side axel was bent wouldn't I feel it in the wheel?

I am going to pull that rim and put it on the other side (which runs straight) and put the passenger side rear on the drivers side. I am thinking that if the rim is bent i will see it "wobble" on the passenger side. If it's the side axel then no matter what wheel I put on it it will still wobble?

Am I wrong in thinking this? Any other way to tell???

Cruz'N Bruz'R

I've heard of this before. Switch your back wheels and see if the same side wobbles if the other side wobbles then it is your rim if not it is an axle OR your frame is bent. Lack of frame connectors and harsh driving can do that. I've seen the later before, and if it's the frame you might as well sell the car, cause it's worthless.

87ROCZ

iTrader: (3)

Dude don't say that!! Arrghhh!!! hehehe... I don't think the frame is bent...I had it checked awhile ago and the chassis dude said she was straight and not bent....

I am hoping it's a wheel... the wheel in question does have a nice ding in it and if you run your hand around the edge of the wheel you can almost feel a warp... but that maybe just my impression.

Well I have to do a oil change on her tomorrow so I am going to swap the wheels and see what happens!! "Fingers crossed".

Now let's say it is the side axel..... would any Camaro side axel work? Or does it have to come from the identical rear end as mine... ie: 9 bolt, 3.27 posi?? My brother has an 84 Z28 that is scrapped but his has the 10 bolt open diff....

Cruz'N Bruz'R

if the wheel is as bad as you say it is then it's probably the rim.
if it's the axle, I'm not sure, my guess is it would have to come from a 9 bolt.

87ROCZ

iTrader: (3)

Sorry for the book here but....

Alright... this evening after doing an oil change I decided to jack up both sides and see what I was dealing with in regards to my bent axle/rim.

I jacked her up and put her on jack stands...started my car and put her in gear. Ok sure enough drivers side wobble wobble wobble.. passenger side whip straight (well a very very very small amount of play but nothing out of the ordinary). So I pull both wheels and swap 'em around. Put her back in gear and yup...wobble wobble but from what I could see it didn't look half as bad ...

Ok so it isn't the rim because if it was bent enough to cause the drivers side to wobble then it would have made the passenger side do the same thing.... sigghhhh, it must be either the side axle or an inside bearing.

So for ****s and giggles I decided to pull off the caliper so I could see the side axle in action all by itself... put her in gear and looked at the axle spinning around... yup sure enough ..looks like it's wobbling to me although not as bad....

Well here is where it gets confusing... I throw a few profanitys at my car and put her all back together and drive her out of the garage. So I get my girlfriend to take it for a spin and I drove her car so I could have a look at the wheel once again... Now it doesn't wobble!!!?!?!?!?!? WTF is that about!??!?! I mean it has a very very slight side to side action but absolutely no where near what it was last night!! Hell if I wasn't paying very close attention to the wheel I would never notice it!?!??!

Am I going nuts here or is there a logical explanation here? I spoke to my Dad who is a mechanic and he said the only thing he can think of is that when the garage that changed my tires put my wheels back on they could have messed that up by torquing down the lugs wrong (ie: not in the cross pattern like you should) thus causing the wheel to wobble?!?!? I do know that they torqued them down with what seemed like 1000 ft/lbs... it took a 1/2" breaker bar and all of my weight (220 lbs) to break the frigging lugs free!

I dunno... I'm lost but from what I see it looks fine now?

Cruz'N Bruz'R

He's probably right. You may have torqued it down the right way when you did it, but the fact that you could see your axle slightly wobbling is still weird.

87ROCZ

iTrader: (3)

I am at a lost... I think it is a combination of several things... maybe an ever so slightly bent rim, coupled with a ever so slightly bent axle coupled with an improperly mounted tire... all adds up to see a big wobble... with a 16" rim it doesn't take much to see an awesome wobble hehehe

I know my axle is ever so slightly bent...this I know...with all of the other gear out of the way you can see that it is bent (well something is not quite right, could be a sloppy inside bearing).. it wobbles very slightly.

Maybe with me swapping the wheels around and mounting the wheels properly it took 2 of the 3 variables out of the equation thus reducing the wobbling effect... I dunno, this is just an educated guess.

All I know is... on Tuesday night I drove behind my car and it wobbled like the wheel was going to fall off... last night after doing what I did she hardly wobbles at all ( almost undetectable unless you are really focusing on the wheel itself)

A complete new rear end (side axles included) is something that I would like to do in the future anyway... maybe a Moser rear, Strange, or something like that.... this won't be for a few years at least though!! hehe

Looks good to me now....

6speedIROC

iTrader: (3)

When you took the wobbly wheel off, did you put in back in the same rotational position wrt the axle?? It doesn't sound like it. You most likely have both a bent wheel and a bent axle and when assembled in the correct position the two cancel each other out.
Take the wheel off and get a shop to spin it on a balancer to see if it is bent. Bearings will not cause a wheel to move in and out like that, the axle 'floats' in the rear axially being held in with a c clip in the carrier.

If the wheel is aluminum you can have it straightened for aboput $100, if steel get a new one.

You should be able to get an axle for cheap at a wrecker, they are easy to change.

87ROCZ

iTrader: (3)

I put the wheel that was on the passenger side which did not wobble on the drivers side .... the original "wobbly" wheel which was on the drivers side was put on the passenger side and it now spins straight...

So in lies the confusion....