Dodge 1995 Vibration/rattle/shutter

[fullheart5]

Well, I'm going to try again. I posted somewhere in automotive forum and someone was kind enough to tell me I was in the wrong place. If
I'm still in the wrong place, let me know. So, with that, ..........
????????????????
We have a 1995 Dodge with 171000 miles. We maintain our own car.
Replaced the transmission amoung other things. We drove from Fla. to
Austin in July and when we arrived the car started to
vibrate/rattle/shutter on acceleration between 35-45 mph. It does
not appear to affect the car performance. When we were driving home
from Austin, my daughter and I notice more problems. We made it to
Tallahassee and in desperation went to a Dodge dealership where they
diagnosed the problem of a cracked rocker arm and two cylinders needing
to be replaced. We left the car in Tallahassee, rented a car and
headed home. My husband retrieved the car the next week and repaired
the car, but now we still have the vibration/rattle/shutter problem.
Has anyone had this problem and resolved it. We have considered
driveshaft, transmission (its been replaced twice)............??????

Also, not familiar with how to work this forum, so I am hoping not to
lose any replies or responses. Thanks.

[waltham41]

You need to be more specific as to what model car you have, and what motor etc. Then try to post in that specific sub forum is it a Dodge Caravan or Grand Caravan? THen you are in the right forum and might find some help here.

[fullheart5]

1995 Dodge SE Grand Caravan, the last year they put out this style. Its a 3.3 Liter V6, although I'm not sure what bearing that has.

We've had Dodge Vans for 20 years and this is something we can't seem to resolve. Car is well maintained and this problem came out of the blue. We've been through all the transmission problems and the quirks related to that. This problem occurs when the car hits an acceleration of 35MPH and continues to 45MPH at which it ceases the rattle and roll nonsense and rides normally until it brakes and goes below 35MPH at which time the cycle starts over again.

[waltham41]

The size of the motor and other information is important because different setups can display the same symptoms and it be different parts depending on the motor etc.

In your case it could be a tire out of balance, a tire that is bad, or as in my case it was 2 of the three motor / transaxle mounts being bad and both drive axels being bad.

My 92 3.3L Caravan smoothed out after changing those parts and my making sure that the engine and transaxle were alligned to the body of the van properly.

[bluzbro]

I, too am new to this forum, but will try to add something constructive and maybe get some help. I have a 96 Dodge Caravan with a 3.0 litre engine. My Caravan does exactly the same thing you describe. It starts to shimmy at 35 and stops around 45. I checked the tires for separated belts, but nothing. When it starts to shimmy, I can put it in neutral and it immediately stops shaking. Sounds like maybe a torque converter problem to me. Did you have your torque converter changed out when your tranny was replaced? Other than that, I don't know where to turn. Any more ideas?

[fullheart5]

Thank you. I checked with my husband and he said that when the transmission was replaced (that was a story in itself) the torque converter was replaced as well, but it was not a new one, since the transmission wasn't new either. How many miles have you got on your car? Well, here's to hoping we can resolve this together as it
is, as my husband says, a real pain. We also can stop the shimmy by just letting up on the gas.

[Ed_Strong]

This is my experience with that problem...
http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbul...d.php?t=194735
Hopefully you can benefit from it too!

By the way I replaced the halfshafts and everything was working great afterwards

[bluzbro]

I have 120,000 miles on my Caravan with the original motor & tranny. The halfshafts sounds like a good place to look next. I just made an appointment with a good front end shop for next week and will see what he finds. Will let you know, then. Thanks.

[fullheart5]

Thanks Ed__Strong. I printed out your thread and read it to my husband and two sons who also repair all our cars. So far seems to be the closest
thing to a possible solution for repair. Oh, the shimmy is fact getting worse, now it expands from 30 to 50 or so MPH, so we are making every effort to rapidly bring this to a conclusion. With gas prices as they are, we are trying to hold on to this car for another year until we can see where this gas crisis takes us.

[fullheart5]

Hip, Hip hurrah. We have solved the shimmy. Thanks to a lot of imput, after reading Ed_Strong's thread. My husband ran down to Auto Zone and bought two axle shaft assemblies. They decided rather than replacing just a part of the CV joint, they would do the whole thing. So..........................two assemblies, at a cost of $126.00, and one hour of labor for my two sons and their Dad to change them out, we now have a smooth running car and no shimmy.
I hope that this will help out anyone else that has the same problem.

Thanks Mr. Strong. Bluzbro direct your front end shop in this direction.

[waltham41]

Remember me? I am the first person to suggest that you may have axel shaft trouble. No thanks needed

I trust that you checked the motor and transaxle mounts when you replaced the shafts. Bad mounts will make your shafts go bad in a short time and you will have the shimmy back and some part store warrantys will not cover the shafts if the mounts were not replaced also.

If the inner boots were damaged and that is where the shafts were bad at, its a very good chance that you have at least one bad motor/transaxle mount bad.

[Ed_Strong]

Originally Posted by waltham41

Remember me? I am the first person to suggest that you may have axel shaft trouble. No thanks needed

I trust that you checked the motor and transaxle mounts when you replaced the shafts. Bad mounts will make your shafts go bad in a short time and you will have the shimmy back and some part store warrantys will not cover the shafts if the mounts were not replaced also.

If the inner boots were damaged and that is where the shafts were bad at, its a very good chance that you have at least one bad motor/transaxle mount bad.

Pay attention to what waltham41 is saying, he totally knows what he's talking about... if you have bad mounts (either engine or tranny) your axles will go bad again in no time. Also some of this engines, not sure if it's the 3.0L or if it's the 3.3 and 3.8L V6 (same engine block) need to be alligned to the engine bay after dismounting the motor. Make sure it's done right otherwise it could really mess up your drive train. Not trying to scare you off but trying to make you aware of it.

I'm very glad I was able to help!

[fullheart5]

Thanks to all for all help, you to Waltham41. I checked with the guys and they said they did all the above mentioned items. My son said to relay that his Dad will take the core apart and find out what exactly was the cause of the failure. The boots were not damaged so that was not the cause. He asked if you know the process of aligning the motor because our motor mounts don't allow movement in order to align them in any other way.

We have a total of eleven cars and the boys maintain all of them. I admit the cars are in different stages of repair and maintenance, but my husbands 82 audi (original owner) has over 400,000 miles and His A4 Audi has 227,000 and they both are running. Audi's are their main passion and my Dodge and my daughters Tribute are kept up because, of course, the ladies need transportation that doesn't break down.

[Ed_Strong]

Well that was the thing, I found out about the engine alignment deal after my van was fixed, so i didn't pay much attention to it. I just wanted you to be aware of it. You might want to stop by or give your local Dodge dealer a call to verify your vehicle don't need it.

[bluzbro]

Bingo! Looks like the shafts are the problem. Scheduled to be replaced tomorrow. Thanks to all for your help. Much better news than the tranny!