Sudden jerk to left when accelerating

[lessersivad]

Well my '93L with 5 speed and 80914 miles has developed an intermittent problem this past week. Last Sunday I took a small drive of approx. 30 miles round trip. On the way back approx. 8 miles from home I thought I felt the steering wheel have a slight jerk to the left. Nothing major just a quick tug. Well I had to slow down to go thru a small village and when I did I really felt the steering wheel jerk to the left. I wasn't using the brakes, just slowing down. So I downshifted and it did it again. For the remainder of my ride home I played with the throttle and everytime I would slow down or speed up it wanted to jerk the steering wheel to the left. I could get it to do quick jerks if I fethered the throttle to get a real light load or no load on the drivetrain. It would even do it letting completely off the throttle to coast. All of the time I was doing this was with the clutch engaged. I raised it up on the hoist and investigated the CV boots and all of them are intact. I started it up and put it in 3rd gear and tried to get it act up but nothing. I then, while it was still in gear and running, slowed each wheel individually to a complete stop to see if I could get the opposite side to do anything weird and still nothing. I then shut it off and tried to see if there was excessive play in the axles and everything appeared to be tight. I also checked the trans fluid level and it was right up to the full mark. I took it out for a test drive and couldn't get it to act up no matter what I did. It has not jerked again until today. And then it went away again. Sorry for such a long post. I'm just trying to give as much info as I can.
Any ideas would be appreciated. Thanks.

[CHills]

Sudden jerk to left when accelerating...............usually means you have a race on your hands. :lol:

What Color is the car?





In all seriousness, maybe your left front wheel barring is going bad.
Other than that I have know Idea. (but then again, I am new to fixing cars)
Sorry if I didn't help any, I just try to make light of every bad situation.

[lessersivad]

"Sudden jerk to left when accelerating...............usually means you have a race on your hands."

That's pretty good.....
Being you also mentioned wheel bearing I do suspect the passenger side is getting bad as the is a slight humming noise coming from that side. If it was jerking to the right I would be inclined to think that it was the problem.

[CHills]

I don't know much about "CV joints" and "transmissions" or "drive trains", but is there any way that a gear/joint/pivot point could be slipping/ catching on some other thing?
(LOL, I must sound completely ignorant)

[Levitan]

Clicking is cv joint, humming like you are in a cropduster is bearings. I can't wrap my mind around your problem though. I'll be watching the responses from the elders.

[elcamino1]

I would check to see if you have a low tire on the left front!

[2002maniac]

mine started doing this recently as well.

It jerks to the left when accelerating and if you are cruising and suddenly let off the throttle the car shifts right.

wierd.

[25Horseplay]

Check the bushings in the front end (control arm mainly) good possibility one is shot.

[lessersivad]

The tires all have the same air pressure. I didn't hear any clicking when this happened but it could still be a CV I suppose even tho it seems to do it only going straight. I don't recall it jerking or snapping going around a corner. It only jerks to the left during accelerating or slowing down with no jerking to the right. The bushings do have some cracks in them so that could be the problem. I was hoping to wait for the Aspire swap before I did any dismantling but it may have to be sooner than that. Thanks for all the input and if there's any other suggestions I'm open to them.

[Seth]

i had a problem similar. get under the car and look for dry rotted bushing and ripped ball joint boots. if theyre ripped replace them cause if theyre not popping the ripped or torn boots will lead to it, i learned that from expirience. but seriously get under there and check for Dry rotten Bushings. sounds like one or more is rotten and coming apart. wich would leave a gap between the bar and brace, so when acceleration is applied would pull it and fill the space wich would cause missalignment.(correct me if im wrong)

or you could have some real torque steering.

(sorry for misspelling and not correcting, the end of 14 hour shift and impatient ready for sleep just have to get my festy fix real quick.)

[GenevaDirt]

Check the bushings in the front end (control arm mainly) good possibility one is shot.

had the same problem....Brian is on the right track...mine truned out to be the sway bar bushing was completely gone....would let the whole strut move back and forth.

[25Horseplay]

Even if you are doing the Aspire swap you wil be still useing the Fesiva control arms and it won't be a waste of money to replace the bushings.

[ejp2fast]

i'm with 25Horse on the bushings... i just replaced mine

[mechanicaldj]

get the polyurethane bushings from Festiva Motorsport

they are great!!!!!

link below
in my signature

[milehighbear]

Same thing happened to me on my 93. I replaced the ball joints, sway bar bushings, and tie rod ends and had it aligned. Dont know which part did it but it all went away and i felt better about the front end of the car being more stable and they all needed replaced anyway so i just killed two birds with one stone. If your ball joints and tie rod ends are in good shape, id go with the bushings too. I got all my parts from Rock Auto and it really wasnt that much.