Steering wheel free play.

[Hmglife97]

My steering wheel has a free play when turning. I need to fix it, and i need to get more information before doing it. I think is it the rack that turns the front wheel that is old or need to replace. What could be the problem?

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[nd4sped]

You could have worn out tie rods or ball joints that is causing the slack in your steering. Its easy diagnose simply by jacking up your car and tring to move the wheel left and right with your hands at the 9 and 3 position. If you are able to shimmy the wheel more than 1/8th inch you need to take a close look at the steering components to see what is worn out.

If you have broken boots, over time water and dirt gets in there and washes out the grease causing metal to metal contact.

 

[Hmglife97]

I am in progress in putting a new outer rod and inner rod

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How would take out the old one like this

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Second picture

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[lunder03]

Honda Civic steering wheel vibrations on highway problem solved

car profile:
2002 honda civic ex
218,000 miles
stock steel wheels with hubcaps

My honda civic started to have vibrations when driving on the freeway.
The vibrations were slightly noticeable between 60-66mph.
As soon as the speed reached 67 and above, the steering shaked very bad.
Even when I gripped the steering wheel with both hands, my hands would
also shake from the vibrations. It was highly annoying just to drive and keep up
with cars ging at 70 mph and above. Because my civic has so many miles, and it still
runs very well, I invested in replacing parts as part of the mainenance.

Here are my journey to solving the problem.
My civic has Centric rotors and brake pads with about 12000 miles. It's
quite new. I also know that civic and hondas' in general have a
tendency to have brakes that warps the rotors quite quickly.
My diagnostic to test the rotors was to use a dial gauge. The rotors were
in factory specs and not warped. My brake pads were
wearing evenly so my calipers were not stucked and dragging
on the rotors causing them to overheat and warp.

I also changed my driver side cv axle w/ a new cardone cv axle. This also did not help.

My front lower motor mount with cracks, and upper transmission were replaced
about a year ago.This did not help with reducing the freeway vibrations.

On the driver side, I replaced the swaybar end link which was worn. This made
the ride steering responsive but did not reduce the freeway vibrations.

On the driver, side, I replaced the wheel bearing and hub with new
bearings and hub and studs and lower balljoint. This did not fix the freeway vibrations.

I've also replaced all 4 struts with kyb excel g struts. This improved
the car's responsiveness, but did not reduce the freeway
vibrations.

Finally, I took my civic to pepboys where they found that the tires
were separating from the inside. This means the sandwiched
steel belts, chords and rubber were deteriorating from the inside.
This caused a slight bump in the tire that leads to the bad vibrations.
I remember running my hands over the tire to feel for warpness but I did not
detect any bumps. My bridgestone tires visually looked fine with 20,000 mi of tread left.
I also did not see any cracks or signs of separation.

I decided to invest in a set of new kumho tires at a local tire shop
where they installed and balanced the tires.

I took it on the freeway driving 60-85 mph, and NO MORE highway vibrations.

I'm posting this article and hope it helps other civic owners plagued
with wheel vibrations on the freeway.

Thank you for taking the time to do so. :-)

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