94 Camry vibrates heavily In Gear / Reverse but not in park / neutral

I fixed the dogbone and front engine mount. They now I have a problem of heavy vibration when I shift to gear or reverse. It does not vibrate in Park/Neutral modes. I have a friend do this and was watching the motor. When gear rod is shifter from P to D you can she engine shifting back ward by half inch (there is play). Since my from engine mount and dogbone are replaced I am assuming that it is not moving forward. Should I have to replace rear engine mount or is it a different problem?:banghead:

If you have the 5SFE 4 cylinder engine, there is some vibration from time to time with this engine in drive. The vibration is enough to shake the steering wheel a bit. If this goes away in park and neutral and also goes away when you give the vehicle just a bit of gas, I would consider this normal. I have owned my 94 5SFE Camry since new, and it always has done this. I complained about it to the dealer when it was new and they changed the front motor mount. It didn't help anything. I asked to drive another 4 cylinder 5SFE Camry they had on the lot and it did the exact same thing. To me this is normal behavior for this generation 5SFE engine.

Mike

nannurius,

I know what your going through dude! When I had to have mine replaced (all 4 motor mounts) they was never able to get the engine balanced hense fourth it vibrated from day one. For myself I just had to accept the fact that that was the was it is from now own. Boy did it cost me royal.:banghead:

rimfire22

I never had this problem before I replaced my Front Engine mount and dogbone. It started after I replaced.

Going back I had to replace front engine mount and dogbone because my exhaust was leaking because of the engine mount. When they replaced exhaust they adviced me to change these two.

I doubt it has nothing to do with your engine mount. Engine mount will not cuase engine vibration.

From what you described, you can check if all the cylinders work. Unplug one spark plug wire one by one and see if the engine rpm drops, if yes, then that cylinder is good. If the engine runs the same, then that cylinder is not working.

It could be either the spark plug, wire, or the cylinder has bad compression.

I doubt it has nothing to do with your engine mount. Engine mount will not cuase engine vibration.

From what you described, you can check if all the cylinders work. Unplug one spark plug wire one by one and see if the engine rpm drops, if yes, then that cylinder is good. If the engine runs the same, then that cylinder is not working.

It could be either the spark plug, wire, or the cylinder has bad compression.

vicchang,

In my case the vibrations didn't really start until I was told the rubber surrounding the mounts were rotted out and needed to be replaced. Since the replacments they were NEVER able to get the vibrations outta my 89" Camry.

rimfire,22

I fixed the dogbone and front engine mount. They now I have a problem of heavy vibration when I shift to gear or reverse. It does not vibrate in Park/Neutral modes. I have a friend do this and was watching the motor. When gear rod is shifter from P to D you can she engine shifting back ward by half inch (there is play). Since my from engine mount and dogbone are replaced I am assuming that it is not moving forward. Should I have to replace rear engine mount or is it a different problem?:banghead:
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I've got the '94 Camry 4 cylinder and generally the vibration in Drive is very mild, nothing that would draw attention or cause concern. Sometimes Reverse vibrates a lot more, but I'm not in Reverse as often.
Not sure how this has been resolved, but here are some ideas.
I suspect that if the engine moving control rod bushings are allowed to deteriorate it would put more stress on the front and rear mounts. You might want to replace both. I'm hoping that by changing the dog bone upper mount when it showed only signs of beginning to crack the other engine and transaxle mounts can be preserved.
I've been using Red Line complete fuel system cleaner for a couple of years now at the rate of apx. 1 bottle per one hundred gallons according to the marks on the side. There are no harsh solvents, and it has been certified selected by BMW as the most effective of all they tested.
The idea is that if one injector becomes somewhat obstructed, the oxygen sensor reads an average at the exhaust manifold and will richen all the injector pulses to compensate, so if every injector tip is clean and spraying the correct pattern, you could get a smoother idle. Also, the four valves per cylinder add significant power to the engine design. If the intake valve faces accumulate deposits, the flow is reduced, so by having the Red Line CSFC clean the valve faces, that could also help smooth the idle.
Another item could be spark plug wires. One of mine was shorting down inside the spark plug tube where it wasn't visible, but two of the wires measured infinite resistance so I replaced the set with Toyota wires.
Another factor that might affect idle smoothness would be carbon build up inside the combustion chamber. Prolonged idling or city driving might cause this. Using the Red Line over time will clean the valve faces. To insure the balance of the combustion chamber is clean I injected distilled water. People say Seafoam also works well, but despite their claims to the contrary, I'm not convinced the light oil carrier is entirely safe for the O2 sensor, since O2 sensors seem to lose sensitivity over time due to buildup blocking oxygen flow through the outer shell. As a secondary benefit, the Red Line survives the combustion process to help clean emissions components. Read their tech data on the web site if interested. I have no affiliation with them.
I took the 2 gallon pressure sprayer from the garage (low pressure hand pump type for garden spraying), cleaned it thoroughly and added one quart of distilled water. Then with the engine hot, slowly sprayed the water into the throttle body. The idea is that the water (H2O) will combine with the carbon to form CO and H2 (hydrogen gas), thereby removing the carbon from the engine - leaving it clean, and more likely to idle smoothly.
The car runs exceptionally well these days with 145,000 miles - smooth and power seems to have increased. Actually idling puts a lot of stress on the engine so imagine any inconsistencies between cylinders would be magnified at idle - especially where the four cylinder has power pulses spaced at 180 degrees of crankshaft rotation. Perhaps having all injectors equally clean and carbon removed helps.
It used to be occasionally, when I would run the engine up close to redline, I'd be concerned that might not be too good for it (even though I run all synthetic fluids and they're always clean and full) - yet usually afterward, it would run even better. Apparently high engine speed can also burn off or release some carbon.
If you're going to pour water into the engine, be sure to do so slowly to avoid hydrolock.

Thanks for the info. I will dig in.

Before I flush the transmission, I got the same problems as yours. But after flush, it really makes a difference-no crazy vibration. Check your transmission fluid, if it is dark, flush it may help a lot.