I just replaced the front crappy factory bushings with some polyurethane bushings. I test drove it on the downhill curvy mountain hills where I live. The difference is unbelievable! Don't know how the Gov't let them put @*!$ like that on cars.

I test drove it on the highway and it handled VERY nice except when I got past 75-80 mph. I started to feel a vibration in the steering wheel. The faster I went, the vibration increased. I let the wheel go and it did not veer off the center of the road for a good distance. Could it be that I need a wheel alignment? By changing the bushings, is it possible that I could have threw it out of alignment? After all the factory bushings were shot to hell and the new bushings (4- 3/4" for each side) was like putting some bushings in when there were none.

Should I get a wheel alignment to solve this problem?

Would it get rid of the vibration?

 

its not the steering alignment cause you didn't lower your car any when you changed out your bushings...

you might want to get your tires rebalanced...

 

Balance wheels!

 

I agree, maybe the system was soo loose you never felt it before. Could be you suffered belt failure in your tire.

A quick test would be to rotate your tires or just replace it with the spare and see how it drives.

 

I rotated my tires and I still get the same vibration. The only thing that I added that I can think of is the hood deflector. I noticed that when I'm driving @ 75-80 mph, it starts to make a slight noise like when you stick your hand out of the window, you know?

 

Did you rotate the tires from front to rear or left to right? Next step is to remove the new deflector you installed.

Wished I had a magica answer. At the chrysler dealership I worked at in the early 90s, many times it was trial and error for feelings noises and before odb scanners and cars that were scannable, you had to swap out a part to see if it fixed the problem or measure the ohm value or just wigglr it and check for looseness.

In many cases when an old K car had performance issues and acted like it ran out of gas, the 300 dollar computer was at fault that was hooked to the intake system that doubled as cooling for it.

 

I rotated the tires from front to rear. You know.............come to think of it, I did have a plug put into my tire about 2 months ago. Maybe I should get new tires even though the tires I have on there now are only 8 months old.

 

Where did you get the poly bushings from? Part number? Which did you replace?

 

If its the ones for the front sway bar to control arms, those are generic ones from autozone. I have a set, but yet to install them, been rather busy.

 

I didnt know AutoZone carried those. TY ill have to look into that when the weather warms up.

 

If all you did was the sway bar bushings and you did not touch the control arms, shocks/struts, and tie rods your alignment sould be fine. The vibration you described points towards wheel balance, go get it checked out at a tire shop.

 

To me it sounds like you need to balance your wheels.

Damn, I thought this was a post about replacing the control arm bushings.

 

Hey, that vibration started to fade after 50 miles of driving. Thanks for all of your input. Now, I was told that the bushings have to be torqued. Does anyone know the correct setting or is this one of those make sure it is tight jobs?

 

around 13ft-lbs

 

Hey, thanks a lot for the info. By the way, your rims are HOT! Thing is, they probably wouldn't last too long where I live. I have just about run over everything from a squirrel to a 3'x6" sink hole.

PS.......... The website is banging!

 

I installed my rear swaybar and now it feels great on the cornering and stuff. I also tightened the front poly bushings to approx. 13-14 ft.lbs The only problem that I have now is that when I'm crusin at approx. 80-90 mph, going around a turn is a little bit tricky. It feels as if there is a delay when I turn my wheel. It seems as if I developed some play in the steering. I turn the wheel and it seems to respond about 1-2 sec later, causing me to overcorrect and then having to countercorrect again. Believe me, it is very fustrating. Has this happened to anyone? and if so what did you do to correct this?