Update to Steering Problems

[travis2822]

I have a real bad vibration and my car pulls hard right. 91 sentra 1.6 automatic. I rotated the tires and had them balanced. Didn't work. I have no play in the tires so I don't think it is the tie rods.
Today I jacked up the front end to see if the tire was wobbly and it was fine. I did notice that the driver side didn't spin while the car was in drive....no accelaration. The passenger side spun very fast. The driver side would spin when I applied the gas but would stop quickly. Any ideas as I am at a loss.

[slideways...]

sounds like possibly a seized caliper on the side that doesnt spin

[travis2822]

Would the stuck caliper cause the vibration as well. I can see where it would make the car go to the right. How can I inspect the caliper to see if it is bad.

[slideways...]

the warped rotor would cause the vibration. one of the first things that a siezed caliper does is warp the rotor from constant friction and heat.

[travis2822]

I am not 100% sure how to inspect the caliper to see if it is seized. What I did was with a screw drive I pry back the plunger with little to no force. It went back fine. With the caliper disengaged from the rotor I proceeded to check to see if the wheel rotated. The wheel did rotate a little better but was considerable slower than the other. I applied brakes and let off and began to spin. Better than before but still not like passenger side. Before I buy a new caliper I would like to know how to inspect it. What I did was remove the caliper and greased the pins and reinstalled them. Same result a little better spin but nothing compared to the passenger side. Any more help would be appreciated.

[slideways...]

put the car in neutral not drive while you spin the tires. but if the caliper was seized, the piston would be very hard to push back in. hmmm otherwise id get an alignment. i cant really think of anthing else right now that it could be...in neutral, the output shaft/axle, the wheel bearing, rotor, hub, and wheel are the only things that spin... the pulling could be alignment, but usually the shaking is uneven rotational mass.

[travis2822]

I planned on going for an alignment next. I hope that is it if not maybe they will be able to see something wrong. I will keep updated.

[travis2822]

Slideways thank you for your help. I figured out what the problem was. It was nothing serious at all. Around a month ago I had a flat tire and put some fix a flat in the drivers side front. It leaked a little bit so I put more. Everything was fine and about 2 weeks ago I finally plugged the tire myself and left the fix a flat. Researching my problem I read that the axles will transfer the power via the path of least resistance. Today I was thinking about the amount of fix a flat that I put in and how it would affect the weight of the tire compared to the other. Hence the passenger spinning faster than the other. Well I moved the tire with Fixaflat to the back and another one to the front and all is well. No vibration. It feels good again. Next time I will not get lazy and put in fixaflat. I will just plug.

Does anyone know how to get fix a flat out of the tire????????

[ProZach626]

I would imagine you could just go to any local garage that has a tire breaker. Have them open it up and then just srape the stuff out. Not 100% sure on how hard fixaflat sticks to the inside of the tire and how hard it would be to scrape out, but that's what I would do.