Clio Sport 172
Recently my 172 developed a wobble through the steering wheel that got progressively worse, it started off at 70+mph. The first stop was tracking and balancing, nope, no help. Next, discs and pads to cross of any possibility of a warped disc, still nope. Steering rack checked and any other bushings that may be connected, all was good. Put my second set of wheels that were 16's with different tyres on, even borrowed another set of 15's from a friend and you guessed it, nope.
It became a garden ornament for a few months while i was annoyed with her, not knowing what was causing the wobble I had done every logical thing at this point I couldn't go over 60mph without feeling like my shoulders were going to dislocate while holding the wheel. I was digging around searching for any minor information I could get that may point me in some direction.
Now the deeper I dug, the more things started to point to an issue with the box. (I have stacked of paperwork and receipts going back to 2003 but nothing to point towards a box or even a clutch) I was having doubts as anyone else I spoke too thought this was impossible, why and how would the gearbox cause the steering wheel to wobble so aggresively?
So driveshafts were next on the list to change as well as ball joints, now, this seemed to improve something I thought, until I took it out the next day to try and test properly, although it seemed to have calmed down slightly as I could get to 70mph, anything over that was still impossible. And so the hunt for a JC5 130 began, still being told "it can't be the gearbox" and "have you tried balancing?"
Nearly a year after the wobble started and going back and forth, researching, finding parts. I finally had a gearbox, (when doing the swap we found the old box looked to have already been swapped from a breaker and the clutch looking like it had lived under the sea for the last 20 years) low and behold, no more wobble. A minor crunch into 3rd at very high revs but that was the least of my worries. I was just happy to be able to go for a drive and my arms still be intact at the end.
How did I celebrate? A trip to the Nurburgring, for a rear wheel bearing to fail an hour away from Adenau and the drivers window regulator to fail on day 2. It never ends.
I hope this thread helps anyone in a similar situation, as I baffled everyone I spoke to about this issue.
It became a garden ornament for a few months while i was annoyed with her, not knowing what was causing the wobble I had done every logical thing at this point I couldn't go over 60mph without feeling like my shoulders were going to dislocate while holding the wheel. I was digging around searching for any minor information I could get that may point me in some direction.
Now the deeper I dug, the more things started to point to an issue with the box. (I have stacked of paperwork and receipts going back to 2003 but nothing to point towards a box or even a clutch) I was having doubts as anyone else I spoke too thought this was impossible, why and how would the gearbox cause the steering wheel to wobble so aggresively?
So driveshafts were next on the list to change as well as ball joints, now, this seemed to improve something I thought, until I took it out the next day to try and test properly, although it seemed to have calmed down slightly as I could get to 70mph, anything over that was still impossible. And so the hunt for a JC5 130 began, still being told "it can't be the gearbox" and "have you tried balancing?"
Nearly a year after the wobble started and going back and forth, researching, finding parts. I finally had a gearbox, (when doing the swap we found the old box looked to have already been swapped from a breaker and the clutch looking like it had lived under the sea for the last 20 years) low and behold, no more wobble. A minor crunch into 3rd at very high revs but that was the least of my worries. I was just happy to be able to go for a drive and my arms still be intact at the end.
How did I celebrate? A trip to the Nurburgring, for a rear wheel bearing to fail an hour away from Adenau and the drivers window regulator to fail on day 2. It never ends.
I hope this thread helps anyone in a similar situation, as I baffled everyone I spoke to about this issue.
