xthephilx

I've got what might potentially be a worn wheel bearing, as indicated by the FSM. I have a slight vibration in the front, transmitted through the steering. It gets worse if I drive the car for a while. The wheels were recently rebalanced. Occasionally, when coming to a stop, the passenger front wheel area makes a groaning sound.

While braking, the car pulls to the right. Heavy braking will jerk the car hard to the right. I'm thinking possibly air in one of the lines, so I'm bleeding the brakes tonight.

Other than that, I'm out of ideas as to what it could be. If it IS a worn bearing, is there any way to avoid paying $100 for the new hub and all from mazda?

Thanks.

mad_7tist

bearings make rumbling noises.

open flat road
35-40 mph
put it in neutral
swerve in a long slalom from side to side
noise should increase then decrease/disappear as you load/unload the bad wheel bearing
if you still cannot tell which
jack up the front end
grab the top inside and lower outside of the tire
push and pull
if you feel any slack at all that is bad
check all the suspension points but the bearing is most common

wheel vibrations tend to be tire/rim balance

xthephilx

No slack in the front wheels other than play in the steering rack. Crap.

Any other ideas what it could be?

Ledfoot

iTrader: (1)

...if its the bearing you can usually tell by jacking up the car and rolling the wheel by hand. A worn bearing will feel and sound rough. especially if all the grease has burned of from heating up. Also try pulling on the wheel side to side and check for play...finally it is not hard to remove and check.

...You may find that your wheels were not tightened when rebalanced or you have an irregularity or defective tire..check for a flat spot or bubble on tread.

xthephilx

I do all the work on my car, and I double checked it all tonight when I worked on the car.

Tires all look fine. Wheels are tightened properly.

Only thing that really caught my attention was that the right (passenger) front wheel hub (with rotor attached) would not turn with the same amount of force throughout its travel. It would turn most of its travel with moderate force, but then 30-45* of travel required a bit more force. "Moderate" force here is "can turn with two fingers on one lug", and "more force" is "required grabbing two lugs with whole hand".

KINETIK_FD3S

spin it back and forth with the wheel on i did that on another car not the 7 but you can feel it like it wants to get stuck and has a clunking sound to it and in the freeway sounds and feels like your doing 200MPH.

cewrx7r1

iTrader: (2)

Don't own and drive the car; if you want to play, you have to pay.

mad_7tist

ok so you have slack in the steering rack and wonder why you have a vibration at speed WTF

Fritz Flynn

iTrader: (263)

Yep it's not your wheel bearing but I wonder what it could be

xthephilx

You know what sucks? I didn't even think about the play in the rack.

I'm going to go figure out backlash setting on the rack and get back to you

j9fd3s

iTrader: (3)

could be a sticking caliper too, it would explain the pulling under braking

xthephilx

I hate how it's always a bunch of problems. I'll check for sticking calipers in a bit.

Would worn front LCA bushings also cause vibration? The list keeps getting better and better.

Fritz Flynn

iTrader: (263)

Could be the ball joint on the little arm that links the tie rod to the spindle.

Whatever it is I'm sure I have the part LOL

xthephilx

I've got aftermarket heim joints there to correct for bump steer. There's absolutely no play in them, I checked.

Steering rack play doesn't seem to be it. It takes a good amount of force to wiggle the rack (manual converted rack).

Do you think the uneven amount of force required to turn the rotor could have something to do with it? Perhaps the rotor isn't perfectly smooth, and that's causing vibration?

Fritz Flynn

iTrader: (263)

Could definitely be a warped rotor from a caliper that's not retracting it's piston properly.

Check for uneven or unequal pad wear on that side.

xthephilx

Pad wear is even, but weird. The pad overhangs the rotor by about 1mm.

I found that the shims on the front right caliper were reversed. Fixed that. The car still pulls to the right on braking, but a lot less. The alignment seems to be way the hell off, which strikes me as odd since I didn't modify anything alignment related. But maybe I screwed something up while working on the braking system. The steering wheel centering is off, but it was off before, only I don't think it was off as much. Oh well.

There's still air in the brakes. On the first pedal stroke, it goes down a lot farther than it does on subsequent presses. Not using the brakes for a while restarts the process. I bled the front brakes, but couldn't bleed the rears due to the sheared off bleeder screw on one of the back calipers (new bleeders coming soon). I find this odd since I thought air in the brake lines would lead to a consistent amount of pedal travel, not pedal travel that changes with brake use.

Anyway, i'm going to have the alignment checked tomorrow to see what's going on. I think this'll lead me to the solution better than anything else, especially considering that the steering wheel is cocked to the left about 15* while driving straight.

xthephilx

Went out for another drive and damn, the car feels really shitty. Partially it's the brakes, and partially the whole thing just feels like ****. The steering feels all wrong. Centering the wheel makes the car go to the right (wheel's off), and it just doesn't...feel right.

If anybody's in the area who can help me out, it would be really appreciated.

BlueRex

I drove a car once with air in the brake lines and experienced the same thing; it built up pedal pressure the more the brakes were used. Just wanted to let you know that's, apparently, not abnormal for a car that needs a brake bleed.

xthephilx

BlueRex: Alright, good. I'll just wait for the new bleeders and then rebleed (for the third time in a week) the brakes. Hopefully I'll get it right this time

As for the pull, I have some insight. I went out driving a few minutes ago, and found that I have significantly less traction while turning left. Parking on level ground, I noted that the left front wheel was negative camber'd, and the right front wheel was positive camber'd. This would explain the uneven amounts of traction. Thinking a little bit, it seems that that would also cause it to pull to the right, especially under hard braking, as the left front wheel has more traction. What I'm wondering though, is if JUST the wrong camber (and possibly caster too, since they're both adjustable up front), and correct toe (since the tie rod ends haven't been messed with) could cause "straight" to require turning the wheel to the left. It seems like it would.

The thing that seems weird though, is that the car was aligned about 2 months ago. It just seems like a really short time in which the car could come so far out of alignment. I'm thinking maybe the nuts on the eccentrics weren't tightened enough, and that allowed the settings to change.

Either way, next weekend I'm replacing all the bushings (I have a set, and they're popping like mad up front), retorquing the hub nuts just for good measure, and then having the car realigned. I imagine this would solve all the problems.