Hey guys I'm new here so I'm sorry if I'm posting in the wrong place but I have a few questions that I'm having trouble finding answers for.
Ok one. I have shaking that feels like it is coming from my front passenger tire it's not a lot but since I some times drive with no radio on and try to listen to and feel the car when I drive I can feel it. I notice that when I go over pumps in the rd that there is a different noise on the pas side than then driver side. Kind of feels like something is loose. And the car shakes a bit in the steering around 50 to 60 ish. You can feel it in the steering wheel. And the steering wheel shakes a lot when you lightly press the break but goes away when you press firmly on it to make a full stop, like if your slowing down coming of the e way on the off ramp and your just tapping the break to slow down but when you come to the light and press harder to make a full stop the shaking in the steering wheel stops. Ok now for what I have done to the car this far. I have changed out the fuel pump, water pump, spark plugs and wires, oil and trans fluid and filters, belt, radiator hoses with two flushes, heater core flush, ac recharge, and replaced the front driver and pass side wheel hub assembly which was the cause of the squeak in the front while driving but stopped when breaking. ( I'm assuming that the bad wheel hubs have something the do with the shaky breaking). I'm really new at this and trying to restore this camaro so all the help I can get with it would so much appreciated guys, thanks so much for reading and if you need more details please let me know. Also the camaro is a 94 v6 automatic 3.4.
Jon

 

How many miles on the car?

Have you inspected the front end for loose ball joints, A-arm bushings and tie rod ends?

The light shake under light braking could be a glazed rotor.

 

236897 is what the meter says, and no I have not been able to inspect them. Can't pull it in out of the rain. And from what I know the light shaking could be cuz of waives in the rotors too, from the caliper pulling the whole system straight when breaking. But I'll check them out soon thanks for that. Any other ideas if those are fine.?

 

One more thing I for got to add is the pulling to the right and left more so the right than the left and it feels like its easier to turn to the right than it is the left. Getting under the car today to see what I can figure out. Any tips on how to do a good inspection of it?

 

Checking the front end is pretty straight forward. To check tie rods- with the front end in the air, go to each front wheel and rock them back and forth. There should be no play. If there is, put your hand on the outer tie rod and shake again, if no play in the outer then put your hand on the inner tie rod and shake again. You will feel looseness in one of those parts if not all if they are bad. Also possibly a bad wheel hub( but you said that you replaced them recently, but doenst mean they arnt defective.)

To check ball joints- Place a jack under one of the front lower control arms and raise the vehicle high enough to where you can fit a long pry bar under the tire. Once high enough, use said pry bar and pry up on the tire(prying up and releasing to feel for looseness). If you feel looseness then put your hand on the lower ball joint and recheck. If tight, repeat for the upper. Repeat for other side.

The suspension must be loaded with vehicle weight to properly check the ***** joints.


Hope this helps. It may be easier to have an extra hand around when checking everything. Let us know if you need anything else.

 

Thanks, helped a lot. Def the ball joints are bad on the pass side, pry bar helped show it a lot and it made the same kind of sound when driving, thanks guys. It looks like both the top and bottom are bad, looks and sounds like the lower more so than the upper, driver side didn't move at all in the up and down, but did move a little on the side to side. I'm not sure how much play would be acceptable in that though.

 

Its not supposed to have any play at all in the joints. It might move a little because of a bad rag joint in the intermediate steering shaft, but if your hand is on the tie rod ends, there should be no play at all.

 

Ok thanks ill have to jack it up again and look at the tie rods again.

 

Ok guys did the ball joints but the car is feeling kind of wobbly now too. Like it just wants to do its own thing. Still pulling to both sides when I break and during breaking if I'm over 45mph the car feels really shaky. Steering wheel shakes real bad and the pedal you get a pumping feeling from it no matter what speed you drive at. Any ideas guys?

 

If the brake is pulsating, then you may have a warped brake rotor(s) and or a frozen brake caliper(s). Sounds like you need to do a good brake inspection.

 

I checked em. Don't look like anything is bad. I'm sure I need new rotors I'm sure they are warped from the bad wheel hubs I changed out but this shaking only came on after changing the pass side ball joints. And now when I break I can hear a slight clicking sound. I'm really getting bothered by this. Trying to hold off taking it too a shop till I change out the tie rods on both sides, when ill then go get an alignment ....... Still not sure if the wobble while driving is from the need for a new tie rod or if I did something wrong when I put in my ball joints.... I'm really confused he guys.......

 

I think you are at the point where you need to have it examined by a reliable front-end shop.

 

Honestly so do I. I was Just trying to be hopeful that I could do something to fix it with out spending an are and a leg ya know. Did another coolant flush yesterday cuz a hose busted and again my coolant was a dark redish Orange ish brown. Only been like three months since my last flush. I know there is a lot of rust in the system from the other owner not maintaining it the way he should have but still I would think it would be looking better by this time. Not wure what's going on but hey that's wwhat I get for buying a car for 200 bucks right.. its running good though my only real issues with it is a high / rugh idle constantly dirty coolant and the front end issues I mentioned beforehand. Other than that I really love this camaro and can't wait till I'm done restoring it. Too bad I can't find some one in my area that knows these cars inside and out to help out from time to time.

 

I warped the rotors on my 99ss slowin down from a 155 roll lol.... the whole car shook really bad. I could see the hood moving going down the road

 

Ok guys just got back from tue shop. The mechanic took if for a test drive gave it twice over inspection on the front end and the guy said everything is tight. Tie rods are good and all that jaz but he did say the struts need to be replaced. Well the shocks anyway. So I just wanna get your guys input on this. I just wanna be sure of what I do before doing it ya know... so what do you guys think? Could the shocks be responsible for that sloppy wobbly feeling I get from the front end while driving? It makes sense to me that they are the shocks but I need to be sure befor I go buy some new ones.