Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting Wheel shaking @ 65-75MPH

Well, I put the car on ramps and was under there for more then an hour poking, pushing and pulling stuff. There is nothing that jumped out and said "I'm broken" with the exception of one anomolly. It appears there is low viscosity grease (not oil) on the passenger side inner CV joint that has splashed around a little. There are two things that I think I can attribute this to, 1. is that when replacing the ball joint, I attempted to use a 2nd jack to lift the rotor to help get the ball joint to release from the hub. It seperated the CV joint from the connection and it may have leaked a little there and later just "splashed" around. I can't find any breakage on the boot. 2. although I could not find a break in the boot, there may be one, else the grease is from something else. Those with the same vibration problem, I ask that they check the passenger side inner CV joint and report (please). I was surprised to see there is a bearing between the CV joint and transmission on the passenger side also (it's also solid with no play). It's hard to tell if the motor mount may be broke since it's well disguised but I still doubt that would cause the vibration since it's relative to speed and not rpm's. As for bushings, the stabilizer bars are worn but the front strut bushings were good, Sears didn't say the back were shot but no vibration there tells me their probably not. Not sure what to do next, I'm thinking of taking the bearings back now since I have strong doubts and dont enjoy "throwing" the money away.
FWIW, I have a 2nd contour GL (97 with 26.3K original miles, dual fuel and for sale for $5,300. If interested, see sales part of this group). I'll swap all 4 of the 14" tires from that car to replace the 15" tires on mine and because the other car doesn't have the vibration problem, I'll completely kill the theory of it being tires or rims! Stay tuned, more to come!

Do any of you have alignment numbers?

And for everyone the shake starts at 65-75mph and I imagine you don't want to go much higher after that, but does it get progressively worse if anyone has?

And that is the only characteristic everyone has, no pulling to the right at slow speeds, nothing else?

Sounds like most everyone is trying new tires and wheels, definitely an important step, even though it does not seem to be solving anyone's problems. I've heard never mix speed ratings, but they all just say that handling may be affected. I have two different speed ratings and three different kinds of tires and it handles the same as when I had the four OEM. And it rides smoothly at 100mph. Wish I knew what was wrong with yours...

Originally posted by Ausgedient:

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And for everyone the shake starts at 65-75mph and I imagine you don't want to go much higher after that, but does it get progressively worse if anyone has?

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For me, the car shakes in the 65-75 mph range, and then gets better again at higher speeds.

Originally posted by Ausgedient:

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And that is the only characteristic everyone has, no pulling to the right at slow speeds, nothing else?

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I don't seem to have any other issues with steering or tires.

As I said, I have the same tires up front and in the back and have had the tires aligned more than once.

Here's is an off-the-wall theory :

From science, you learn that everything has what is called a "natural frequency". The natural or resonant frequency of an object is the frequency at which the object will easily vibrate.

Soldiers are taught to march across a bridge out-of-step, so they won't create vibrations that tap into the bridge's natural frequency. In extreme cases, the vibrations can cause a bridge to collapse, as happened when the driving force of the wind caused the collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in Washington State in 1940.

I was wondering if that is what is happening to our cars. That is, they reach a certain speed where the rotation of the front tires, disk brakes, rims, axles, etc. get to a certain vibration which is amplified by the "natural frequency" phenomenon.

Just a thought...

okay i experienced this with a merkur XR4Ti i had. to make a long story short i tried everything, and i mean EVERYTHING to no avail. i was also a member of the merkur owners club of america at the time and we would get a monthly magazine. they had ford engineers who actively helped with problem solving on staff. anyhow they suggested that "we" have the tires balanced ON the car. it may be hard to find someone who does that now, but problem solved. i had the car for 147,000 carefree vibration free miles after that! it didn't matter what kind of tires i ran either, same results.

Do you have aftermarket wheels? If so what size?

Yeh, yeh I'm a dope. I see it now-stock wheels. I vote for having the tires balanced on the car. I have heard this solves "un-solvable" vibration.

Just for review and extra info, my car just had the front end checked out when the axles were replaced yesterday and all bearings, bushings etc were tight (or replaced in the case of my right hub bearing) and the tires are on stock wheels, balanced etc. I have never had any vibration problems until the last month or so and now it is driving me nuts. My car has 82k on it.

Originally posted by bbrown:

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...they suggested that "we" have the tires balanced ON the car.

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Who balances tires while they are on the car???

And how is it done???

Yes. I have this problem as well. anything higher (up to 120), or lower and nothing. I am getting new struts on tuesday, we'll see if it helps.
My personal theory is that our wheels are getting over-torqued by those air wrenches and its warping our discs. I'm getting brakes pretty soon, and I'm going to demand hand tightened wheels.