Tire noise, help! (new tires)

[91_festy_Gl]

All good guys. Glad I wasn't the only one to think it was my tires originally hehe. Hopefully I am able to help the next guy who falls into this trap.

Tomorrow I'm taking her out for a long drive to see if there's any bugs left in her. It's ironic, nothing ever went wrong with this car until I started the aspire swap then one by one things died (related or unrelated) ... That's cars I guess.

Same here. My gl had nothing wrong with it untill I done the suspension swap and found that I was missing a spacer for the front bearings. About 100 bucks later in bearings festyboy told me I needed the spacer. I was close to selling that car!

[batstiva]

Hey, I think it might be the bearings.

Glad you got it sorted out. Amazing how many shops just want to crank down that rear spindle nut as hard as they possibly can.

[Click_It]

Yeah all sorted but another minor problem...

I get a vibration in the wheels when doing >65mph. First thought was wheel balance but they assured me they balanced the new wheels so if they are to be believed then it has to be the torque in wheel studs / spindle nut. I don't have a torque wrench so I did them to feel but given the recent dramas I think it's time to buy a proper wrench and set these correctly. I reached this conclusion after reading a similar thread on FF, he adjusted the studs to 70 and problem went away. Worth a try right? I should probably own a Torque Wrench by now anyway!

[perucho]

New tires, right? Sometimes (actually it's fairly common) the tires are out-of-round. Especially cheaper tires. They will balance but as they spin they will wobble left and right causing the steering vibration. Make sure that's not the case. Fairly easy to see when they have them on a balancing machine and they are spinning. Try swapping the rear wheels/tires to the front one at a time and see if that helps. And yes on the torque wrench!

[FestYboy]

also newly mounted tires may take a day or 2 to fully seat and if that's the case, the ballance that was put to them at the shop is no longer valid and needs re-done.

[Click_It]

Okay... I've been busy. I didn't want to take the car back to the tire shop until I was sure it was not something I could fix myself so today, with my new digital torque wrench (it's no snap-on but I'm pretty impressed none the less) I checked the specs for all kinds of nuts and bolts around the festiva and fix them accordingly. I'm amazed just how many things were out, but the huge one was where the bushings at the end of the sway bar where it goes into the lower control arm (??)... It was less than half the tension it needed to be! I'd been too gentle with it.

Shaking used to begin at 50mph and get significantly worse at 70mph+. So far 50mph is smooth as now. There's a bit of a police presence around here so I didn't want to speed but I'll get her on the freeway tomorrow and open her up. Fingers crossed I may have fixed this myself! Otherwise it's back to the tire shop as both of you have mentioned above.

Oh yeah, during all this something else went wrong (Winnie is being a troubled teenager at the moment!), one of the springs on the aspire caliper holding the pins broke, it was sticking out brushing the rim - sounded like bicycle spokes! Bit of wire and I fixed it better than new, not sure if anyone else has ever had one fail but it's an easy fix if it happens... Pics below

Broken caliper spring (the bottom pin on caliper could pop straight out with ease)


Home made fix, just need wire


My new toy


EDIT: And this is the crown/castle nut I mentioned needed heaps of tightening.

[Click_It]

Couldn't wait, took it for another drive now.

It's better than it was but yeah it needs to go back to the tire shop, >60mph and it starts shaking still.

[Safety Guy]

Well at least you're improving things all along! Hope you get this totally cleared up.

Karl

[Click_It]

Unfortunately the problems continue. After another balance the problem persists. Tire shop insists I need hub locators which didn't come with the wheels. Wheel shop said they don't have any for that wheel but they are easy to find and another tire shop said I'd have to go get some custom made and even then its not guaranteed to fix it. Last tire shop reckons the +43 offset and wheel size is probably wrong for the car. So everythings clear as mud now... Frustrating

[Click_It]

okay after running around to a few places someone's going to fit the hub rings next monday, he reckons that's the problem. $10, hopefully fixes this.

[villageidiot]

if they are not hubcentric, that will cause problems

[Click_It]

if they are not hubcentric, that will cause problems

Yeah, they aren't hubcentric. That must be the problem. The place who sold me the wheels palmed me off when I tried to get hub rings for the wheels so I've gotta get custom ones. They have hardened plastic ones for $10 or can make custom steel ones for more.

[villageidiot]

id personally go with the plastic ones, as they do not corrode to the brake rotor.

[perucho]

Plastic ones are ok

[Click_It]

Awesome, thanks guys. I'll report back once rings are fitted.