1996 accord wobbling axle problem Not CV

[Doug_I]

Hello everyone
My Mother in Law just came into a 1996 accord 4cyl automatic. There was some noise comming from the passenger side of the car.
This noise ONLY happens when the wheel is turned all the way to the left. I lifted the car and had the wheel turned to the left, put into drive and revved until it made the noise. It appeared to be the inner CV joint ( I could actually see it wobble)
Yesterday after fixing the Thunderbird (No spark problem) I decided to put in the axle. On closer inspection I noticed that the plastic inside the wheel well was actually ripped out, the wire harness inside the fender
had the covering pulled off, and that I could move the axle up and down at least an eighth of an inch.
The CV joints seem tight. Could this have been hit so hard that it damaged the bearing where the axle goes into the transmission? The debris picture shows what i would consider an abnormal amount of dirt it's about an inch thick and also alot around the headlight area.

This is a 27 second video of the axle moving

[Scrapper]

yes it could have bent the bearing the way you say it wobbles. but your sure it's not the half shaft?

[Doug_I]

Originally Posted by Scrapper

yes it could have bent the bearing the way you say it wobbles. but your sure it's not the half shaft?

did you look at the video? is the axle supposed to move that much?
I just don't want to start throwing parts at it, like so many of the pro's do

[Scrapper]

Originally Posted by Doug_I

did you look at the video? is the axle supposed to move that much?
I just don't want to start throwing parts at it, like so many of the pro's do

from what i can see the c/v joint does like pivet and when you say when you turn it sharp that usaly means c/v joint if it's clicking but could have bent the bearing it should have no play where axle runs threw the bearing.

[jeffcoslacker]

They'll usually rock around a little in the output race...what I see doesn't look excessive for a car that old....

If the axle shaft was wobbling around in gear with the steering at the lock, that would still most likely be a damaged joint...even if there's a lotta movement in the output bearing it'll still run true as long as the joints aren't binding, from what I've seen.

Pull the axle, cut the inner clamp band and slide that inner tripot apart, I bet you see the problem. If not put a new band on it and check the outer, see if the cage is broken or something...either way, you can put it back together if it seems ok.

[jeffcoslacker]

You never know what you'll find on a used car...this made me think of a situation I had with the wife's '95 Accord a while back.

At 200,000 miles, the original shafts were utterly shot, they'd been without intact boots forever, but I've seen so many Hondas run for years with CVs clattering like hell, I kept letting it go. Finally it began making noises when driven straight ahead, so I figured failure was imminent.

I actually BROKE THE CENTER out of a nice Matco 1/2" breaker bar trying to remove the spindle nuts. I was putting so much force into it, and I had a lotta faith in that tool, so when it broke it threw me for a loop and I hurt my back real bad.

So I took it to a shop to have them replace the shafts. New shop that just opened near us, figured I'd give them a shot, see if they are any good. They gave me a real good price, trying to get some biz established.

So I get it back and it seems ok, I wasn't happy about some of things the kid did while working on it (calipers hanging from hoses, removed the entire spindle instead of just separating the bottom, etc)...made me wonder if he knew what he was doing. But it seemed fine.

So fast forward two years. Wife comes home from my mother in law's, she says on the highway there was kind of a muffled bang and it began to wobble/shake pretty violently. She limped home on secondary streets.

I took it for a ride, and after making a couple of sharp right turns, it began a very alarming wobble in the right front side. I stopped and looked with the wheels cut to the lock, and I could see the outer joint looked "dislocated"...so I limped home.

When I remove that shaft, I find that it is not even the correct outer end on it...mine has a tapered seat on the hub to align it, just like a lugnut, this one was flat. It had just been running drawn up tight by the spindle nut but not aligned by anything other than fastener force.

Apparently the cage finally failed, and the resulting bind was able to shift it around at times and make the whole shaft flutter real bad. Surprising it didn't blow apart.

But an even bigger surprise was I found that the dickhead didn't even put cotter pins back in the lower ball joints ...and she'd been driving around like that for two years.

I went back up to that shop with the intent of some kind of settlement, or I was going to beat that dumbass to death with the defective shaft. They realized how bad they screwed up, and how pissed I was, and refunded the cost of a new shaft and half the labor. I was satisfied with that.

Just a little anecdotal info, it could be that the shaft was replaced after that accident, but something similar could be happening....