at the last autocross i went to, the safety inspectors were concerned about my rearend. something about the wheels being loose and about to fall off.

they have a teeny bit of play if you push hard enough, but nothing i'm concerned about.

anyone have any idea of what it could be? i wanna say old wheel bearings, could that be it?

 

Yeah could be wheel bearings, does it make any noise or anything?

 

sound like rear wheel bearings.

 

Replace those rear wheel bearings. Those little 13 inch wheels spin mighty fast. Either way, they're probably due for replacement, after all, the car is pretty old.

 

If your corner hard a lot, it's possible for the wheel bearing to work its way loose on the axle. (This despite having a retaining collar that requires a minimum of 6 tons of force to move!)

There is a discussion on the Mazspeed forum - basically the racers just keep sets of axles at the ready with new wheel bearings on then, and swap them out when the old ones start moving around. Some recommend tack-welding the retaining collar to the axle so it can't slide off.

http://www.mazspeed.com/maz-cgi/Ultr...01626728429933 Let's see if this works...