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!
