This just seemed to come out of the blue. I wasn't driving it when this started, but there was reportedly no telltale sound, no potholes, no aggressive driving.

When throttle is applied or gears are changed, the rear end lurches to the right. Almost any amount of torque and the thing wants to jump out.

I got under the car expecting to see at least the bushings from teh trailing arm gone, but everything appears solid. Nothing loose, no metal tears, no missing bolts. I've mtached up the rear suspension to the shop manual photos, and nothing is out of place - no bends either. Didn't check the CV joints on the half-shafts, but I've had those go bad before on another car and I didn't get this kind of lurching, si I doubt that's it.

Any ideas?

 

Could dead DTSS cause this? Alignment?

 

CAn't think of any reason the alightment would have gone abruptly out of whack, but I wonder about the DTSS? I hadn't thought about it.

I'll try toggling the thing on and off tomorrow and see if it has any impact. The way this thing handles though, I'd be surprised if DTSS had this much impact. It's really not driveable - frightening movement at 20-30 mph.

 

You have a broken bolt or a loose bolt that is partially still inside of whatever it was bolted to, most likely a trailing arm. Take a long well-lit look at all the bolts in the rear suspension, you'll see one either broken or 1/2 way worked out b/c a nut fell off (or any number of stupid reasons).

Buy new hardened bolts and meet your new friend: Loctite.

(BTW: THE SAME EXACT THING HAPPENED TO ME! It was on the passenger side, the nut fell off and the bolt was partially sheared off and the remainer of the bolt was somehow wedged in the hole. I bouht new bolts and a tube of Loctite)

 

Yeah, I'm hoping daylight will help. I was under the car looking for missing bushings, nuts, and bolts and didn't see anything, but I'm looking at an unfamiliar suspension in the dark while standing on my head.

Not that it's a problem....

 

Check tire pressures?


-Ted

 

Yeah, one side was down to 26 lbs, but I've had wilder variations without this kind of trouble.

In fact, I had handling like this for a few seconds once before on a racetrack. That was moments before my right rear tire passed me going into a corner......

But here the lugs are tight, no noise while moving, tires are reasonably solid, bearings feel tight.

 

engine mounts/tranny mounts?

 

The left (from front of car) engine mount on practically every single 7 is dead. But you don't hear of this rear stepping out issue on EVERY 7, do you?

 

Rear subframe. either a bolt or the subframe its self is broken. I had the same problem (after a really bad drifting accident) whenever i put my foot on the gas, changed gears anything, the rear of the car would surge to the right. But my problem was really bad, the subframe was VERY broken.



Maybe that bolt right there is broken? but looks fine.


Lift the car up on jackstands, and yank around at the rear wheels feel for any play. Good luck!

 

And the answer is......

None of the above - sort of. It appears to be loose bolts on the left rear wheel. The primary bolt that runs from the underside up into the trailing arm appears to have lost a lower bushing and isn't tight. The bolt on the top of the wheel support has about a 1/8" gap between bushing and housing.

Can't figure out why this is a sudden issue, because neither of these bolts is going anywhere - they are solidly in place. The only explanation I can see is that the bushing on the lower bolt is what holds the wheel straight, and it's either gone or mashed.

Still, the brake assembly can be moved easily by hand, probably about 5-10 degrees with almost no effort. Under a load, my guess is that it turns inward, pushing the rear to the right.

Thanks for the suggestions. It was good to be able to look directly at these possibilities, if only to confirm that the parts you pointed out were tight. Saved me a lot of time and a lot of doubt.