91 accord wagon cb9 steering wheel vibration at idle

[famwagon14]

i have a 91 accord wagon automatic w/ 250xxx miiles, the steering wheel vibrates annoyingly at idle, yes i replaced all 4 mounts with brand new units(including the vacuum rear mount), most of the vibration did go away with the replacement of the mounts, but there is still of a vibration on the steering wheel, its somewhat annoying to me. the car also recieved a full tune-up, it runs great. anyhow is there anything else i should check??

[SilverShadow]

i have a 91 accord wagon automatic w/ 250xxx miiles, the steering wheel vibrates annoyingly at idle, yes i replaced all 4 mounts with brand new units(including the vacuum rear mount), most of the vibration did go away with the replacement of the mounts, but there is still of a vibration on the steering wheel, its somewhat annoying to me. the car also recieved a full tune-up, it runs great. anyhow is there anything else i should check??

I had the same problems when I got my 92 and in my case the mounts were the problem. So as I read your post I too thought..tune-up....nope you took care of that. Now could bad shocks cause a vibration all the way to the steering column? Could the column have something lose? Wish I could have helped but I'm going to follow this thread to see what it turns out to be...

[MrMagnificent]

There's a few options here.

If you have excessive vibration it can be caused from some of these.

Old and worn motor and tranny mounts. Get them replaced or filled. Worn mounts will eventually shake your car to pieces believe it or not.

Old/torn/worn cv axles, another culprit. Easily spotted for leaks and tears in the boot, if not taken care of the bearings will wear out shortly. It's harder to identify a semi worn cv axle if you don't know how to look. So you listen.

If you cv axles are damaged a way to check is to jack both drive or in cb7 cases both front tires off the ground. Turn you wheel to left till it locks , same goes for the other direction. Then give her some gas

If you hear a squeal or strange noise coming from your cv axles your bearings are toast. Replace them.

I would go onto ball joints but idk, never had a problem with them yet. Who knows could be it.

Now if your shocks are blow you can easily tell. Going over minut bumps would send your shocks into your strut towers causing it to clunk.


Anyways hope I helped good luck.

[Raf99]

There's a few options here.

If you have excessive vibration it can be caused from some of these.

Old and worn motor and tranny mounts. Get them replaced or filled. Worn mounts will eventually shake your car to pieces believe it or not.

Old/torn/worn cv axles, another culprit. Easily spotted for leaks and tears in the boot, if not taken care of the bearings will wear out shortly. It's harder to identify a semi worn cv axle if you don't know how to look. So you listen.

If you cv axles are damaged a way to check is to jack both drive or in cb7 cases both front tires off the ground. Turn you wheel to left till it locks , same goes for the other direction. Then give her some gas

If you hear a squeal or strange noise coming from your cv axles your bearings are toast. Replace them.

I would go onto ball joints but idk, never had a problem with them yet. Who knows could be it.

Now if your shocks are blow you can easily tell. Going over minut bumps would send your shocks into your strut towers causing it to clunk.


Anyways hope I helped good luck.

Did you read his post?


But Op, if most of the vibration went away with the replacement of the mounts then I would double check the work done there. The mounts are the #1 issue so lets double check it.
- When you pop the hood is the engine shaking at idle?
- Are all the bolts tight for your engine mounts?
- Is one engine mount vibrating more than the rest?
- Can you still easily rock the engine with the car off?

I've never seen anything else cause this issue like shocks, axles, etc, as the car is just idling. If someone else did the work of replacing the old mounts, check the rear mount. I've had mechanics take shortcuts on this one as its hard to get to.

[SilverShadow]

I like these replies! When I bought the Shadow years ago, the entire engine shook as if instead of a F22 in it, a message bed was there. Got the wagon from a lot who told me the guy put in a new mount...My mechanic looked at them and they were all cheap after market yellow strange. He replaced all with more expensive OEM and the shakes were gone. Really. So maybe you don't have good ones either?

[BurtonRiderT6]

There's a few options here.

If you have excessive vibration it can be caused from some of these.

Old and worn motor and tranny mounts. Get them replaced or filled. Worn mounts will eventually shake your car to pieces believe it or not.

Old/torn/worn cv axles, another culprit. Easily spotted for leaks and tears in the boot, if not taken care of the bearings will wear out shortly. It's harder to identify a semi worn cv axle if you don't know how to look. So you listen.

If you cv axles are damaged a way to check is to jack both drive or in cb7 cases both front tires off the ground. Turn you wheel to left till it locks , same goes for the other direction. Then give her some gas

If you hear a squeal or strange noise coming from your cv axles your bearings are toast. Replace them.

I would go onto ball joints but idk, never had a problem with them yet. Who knows could be it.

Now if your shocks are blow you can easily tell. Going over minut bumps would send your shocks into your strut towers causing it to clunk.


Anyways hope I helped good luck.

Don't fill worn mounts, just purchase OEM replacements.

CV axles being bad won't make a car shake at idle.

You explained how to check for a bad CV axle but in fact just told him how to hear a bad bearing

Ball joints at idle?

If the struts are bad then the car will bounce longer when going over bumps as the spring will have nothing to slow it down. Much like holding a slinky and letting one end fall to the floor, it will just gently bounce up and down.

[Losiracer2]

If you didn't purchase OEM mounts, that's probably why.

I bought an aftermarket rear mount for my EX 5spd and my car shook like crazy at idle, even more with the new mount. I got sick of it so I converted the rear bracket to an LX/DX and used that mount, problem solved since I for sure as hell wasn't replacing that huge EX mount again, risking damaging my heater core (The EX 5spd rear mount is the hardest mount to change)

Turns out the durometer of the rubber they used is way too stiff compared to what Honda uses and didn't absorb the vibrations at idle.

[famwagon14]

i replaced them my self with aftermarket replacements, ANCHOR brand. yes the rear one wAS a pain to install! i double checked all the bolts attaching them for tightness..only one i havent double checked is the tranny mount. i have the same ANCHOR mounts on my 95 accord h22 5spd, didnt have a vibration problem there.. hmm... well today i removed the passenger side wheel and found out that the lower control arm bushing (the one attached to the shock fork) was completely destroyed, im also getting a metal to metal scraping sound when i put it in reverse, looks like the passenger side wheel, the inside is scraping the bottom of the sway bar link! yea the swaybar links r aftermarket and has 2 in. drop lowering springs.

[Fleetw00d]

I have assumed through this thread that "at idle" means with the car not moving (leaves the suspension out of it). I know you said you did a full tune up. Did you clean the plug holes and only use a little anti-sieze on the plugs? The 92 coupe I just sold ran terribly, even with new plugs because I think I used too much anti-sieze and had oil in the holes from replacing the lower tube seals. I could see with my timing light that firing was erraric. Cleaned them up and it ran fine. Did you check the compression? If you have a weak cylinder it could cause uneven input to the crank, driving the vibration. Other remote possibility is that the balance shaft(s) aren't timed properly.

[famwagon14]

Yea all that was done.. if the the balance shaft timing was off itd vibrate during acceleration as well it happened with my h22a

[Rezz]

It may not make sense to some but believe me... after replacing damn near everything under the hood and still having a vibration, I figured it out.

These are two more causes that COULD be behind it:
-Low power steering fluid (the air is what causes the vibration).
-Failing power steering pump.

Mine was simply a leaking return hose that I could not see, causing my newly flushed fluid to go all over Ohio and all the way down to the low line... -_-