hey guys,

recently ive been noticing that my front right tire would wobble while driving, particularly while the roads are wet. i jacked it up and pulled on the wheel in every direction possible, in-out, left-right, front-back, and so on. the only way i can make the wheel move is by pushing and pulling on the front of the wheel. i get about 1/4 to 1/2 and inch of travel and im sure this is why i feel like my wheel is going to fall off while driving, here is a poorly drawn pic so you get a better idea:



please, pay no attention to the face i felt the car needed, i get very bored..lol.

anyways, the green arrows represent the wheel location, and the red arrow represents the travel. obviously, not exact, but i think you get the idea...

any ideas?

Is this an automatic?

If so it's the free play in the transmissions park prawl mechanism, which is normal.

yea its automatic, however, while driving it feels like the balljoints are going to fail. i know because i had a escort with the same problem, only difference is the escorts wheel would actually wobble with the car jacked up....

when was the last time you had the wheels balanced. Might have thrown a weight.


-Chris

its not really that kind of a wobble, the front right tire literally feels like its going to fall off when i drive in water or over a small bump, or while driving over a tar strip on the road. the only way i can explain the situation is failing ball joints, but there still tight.

basically, i need to know what happens when you blow out a strut mount, to see if thats what happened.


thanks for the responses!

heres a better picture than the original, i think this one might make more sense:



basically, the red dot represents the pivot point, and the green represents the tire location, and the blue arrow is for the travel.

if i pull on the rear of the wheel, it doesnt move, only from the pushing/pulling on the front of the wheel it moves.

Check your tie rod ends! Try turning the wheels to the left just enough that you can get your hand behind the wheel to grab the tie rod. Do this with the car on the ground - not jacked up.
If you can feel any looseness there, you need to figure out which end the play is at. I would suspect and hope for the outer one, as it's a relatively easy and cheap fix. I've never looked much into seeing what our cars have for inners - out of sight inside the rack. Wobble in this direction as you have shown is very likely to be the tie rod end.
If you jack it up and can move the wheel like you say, you should be able to see the play there. It's unlikely it would be a bushing, as it would make a ton of noise, being that bad.
The tie rod end should have NO play in it. If it's as bad as you say, you shouldn't drive the car until it's fixed. Loss of steering at speed could be a costly problem...
Hope this helps.
John

Does your car wonder or pull to one side under acceleration and then moves back into the lane when the coasting? Look for the loose bolt in the lower a arm attachment to the "K" brace under the front of the car. There are two attachment points,, the one to the rear of the car is perpendicular to the wheel, the one towards the front is parallel. It that one is loose, that would cause the 'play' in that area and you can move it by hand, side to side, like your arrows show, when the car is jacked up. Look to see if the hole in the 'K" member did not get 'ovaled' out, otherwise make sure that bolt is super tight. Need to remove the lower 'dogbone' engine mount to access it.

hmmm, i never thought about that, ill have to check it out.



thanks!