Problem with a 4eat in touring wagon

[duffrey93]

Hey guys
Im having some trouble with my TW which I am starting to think might be coming from the transmission. So here is what I am experiencing:

I am getting a wobble, shudder, shake from what seems to be the drivers front wheel
-only happens when accelerating and is proportional to how hard I accelerate. Accelerate sofly get a soft shudder, accelerate hard get a hard shudder and is smooth while coasting
-power light seems to come on more often when I accelerate hard and downshifts but not everytime
-the car seems to have more power ( maybe its just me)
-seems to break loose easier mainly when it is raining
-seems to pull to one side when accelerating hard, may be due to one side breaking loose
the shudder is very similar to a wheel being out of balance

So these are the things Ive checked so far:
-tires have been balanced and rotated -(may need to be a done again, maybe scwhabs did it wrong?)
-checked the bearings by grabbing the wheels when jacked up, no play
-no play in axles
-checked tranny codes, no codes have come up yet
-im not getting the classic torque bind when turning sharp either
-no lights flashing when I start the car

The problem sounds really similar to this post with the exception of the loss of power
http://bbs.legacycentral.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1283
but i cant tell what ever happened with their car.

So if anyone could help it would be greatly appreciated. This may give me an excuse to do a good old 5mt swap.

[Legacy777]

Does the power light come on or does it blink? It is normal for it to come on during heavy acceleration.

Have you tried inserting a fuse in the FWD fuse holder? Try that and see if anything changes.

Other than that, I'd probably say it's the axles. They can look fine, but give you vibration and other issues.

[duffrey93]

The power light just comes on solid, no blinking.

I did try the FWD fuse and I didn't feel any difference in the shudder.
Haven't reset the TCU yet.

Another observation is that I get a clicking when turning tight to the left and accelerating but I have been experiencing this for a while.

Im also noticing shifts are getting a little bit harder.

One axle was replaced and others boot is starting to tear. I will probably end up replacing it.

One other possibilty I was wondering is if the struts could be adding to this mess. They are getting very soft and need to be replaced.

Ill keep posting with my findings.

[Legacy777]

With the mention of clicking, that makes it that much more convincing it is the axles. I would highly recommend a good set of rebuild axles. Do not get axles from a local autoparts store. They are built in china and are POS.

I have a little rant about the ones I bought for my Impreza
http://bbs.legacycentral.org/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=40105

I'd recommend www.cvaxles.com or http://www.ccrengines.com/mwe/


Struts may be contributing, but I'd say the axles are most likely the culprit. I'd also recommend replacing struts with KYB GR2's.

[duffrey93]

Thanks for the useful info Legacy777.

One more thing Im noticing is I am getting a clunk when I shift from Park to Reverse. The clunk is very similar to when the U-joints were going out on my 76 blazer. I had someone shift back and forth while I looked under the car and noticed the whole transmission shifting or torquing quite a bit.
Could this shudder problem be coming from the tranny mount?

The other thing I noticed is the drive line had some play but Im not sure if its normal. It would rotate a good 1/8 of a turn but there was no other play, nothing front to back.
Maybe this is a whole other problem seeing that I still had the shudder after putting in the FWD fuse. I'd assume the drive line wouldn't rotate at all in that case.

Ill probably go ahead and replace the axles but, could the tranny mounts also be causing my problems?

[Legacy777]

Tranny mount may contribute to the problem. Without jacking the trans up a little it'd be hard to say whether the mount was damaged. The stock mounts are relatively soft.

The rear driveshaft is going to turn since the rear diff is turning.

[duffrey93]

All right, problem solved
It was the axle. I crawled under the car and started shaking the axles and they had no play. Then I jacked up the passenger side and all of the sudden the axle had all of this slope.
I just had the axle done 6 months ago at a shop so I took it back and had them replace it for free. The car is so smooth now. Hopefully they didnt just put a crappy axle in again but for free I couldn't complain.
Thanks for the help Legacy 777

[Legacy777]

Glad to hear that was the problem and you got it fixed for free.