car shaking, help...

iamjoe16

New Member
Feb 1, 2004
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i know there are a couple posts on this but i want to make sure i get this right so that i dont waste money. recently my car has been idleing low and haveing trouble running. one night on the freeway it started bogging out, like it had befor when the plug wires were burning up. I had i towed and taken home. i threw new plug wire on it and it fired right up, i also wrapped the headers and put in plug wire looms to keep these from burning up. After i put all this in i drove it down the street. about a mile down the road it started running really hard and had little power, i still had oil pressure, i started to pull over and then heard a grinding sound along with some violent vibrations. I killed it immediatly. it then had a lil trouble turning over so i let it cool for twenty minutes. I went to start it and it fired right up but was vibrating pretty bad. I drove it back up the street to my apt and parked it. While driving it had little power and the vibrations were horrible. Also after i shut it off, it had a slight grinding sound that continued for about 2-3 seconds. While reading these posts i have seen people say its the trany, harmonic balancer, motor mounts, or drive shaft. Please help thx :shrug:
 
It will take some inspecting, but my first blush answer would be balancer. If the outer ring slipped, it would create vibrations. Plus the ring tends to slip so as to create excessive run out - the outer ring hits the timing cover, etc. Look for scrape marks behind the balancer. Look for a cracked/broken elastomer. If you take #1 to TDC, look at the timing marks to see if they are in orbit.

You are wise to have parked it - I would not drive it again till it is fixed.
Good luck.
 
Let us know if that takes care of it.
It should be pretty apparent once you get the old one off if this is it or not. But if the elastomer is cracked, you are wise to replace the part, even if for some reason that is not the fix.

Good luck.