just want to sum up the parts i need to get for some front end maintenance. the steering wheel wobbles while i'm braking lightly. i've heard it's the tie rod ends or the ball joints. either sound pretty likely to me. maybe both? i'm pretty sure the suspension has never been worked on, so is there a complete rebuild kit maybe? what should i order?

Take it to your local professional alignment shop.

and let them do ALL of it? that will cost a fortune! i was hoping to replace the parts then limp it over to them to get it aligned. or give it a shot at doing the alignment myself. i read an article on it and it made it sound fairly easy.

No... I mean have them tell you what needs to be replaced, unless you are sure about the worn parts.

oh ok. that's a good idea i guess. if it were something simple, i'd just let them do it i guess. i have a pretty trusted shop. they only messed up on me once and it was small.

if you take your car in most alignment shops will do a free estimate then you go home and do all the work yourself that you can and then take it back and have them finish it and align it. my dad saved like 1500 dollars buy doing the front end of his truck himself. the only thing he couldnt do was pressing in the ball joints or something

well no one told me once you bought a nissan 300zx n/a or twin turbo that if u hit a post hole hard that " you cant have a alinement done " unless you have " adjustalbe tension rods " and adjustalbe camber kit " eather way i had to replace the steering rack inner outer tie rod ends tension rods and camber kit " all togethor cost me another 1200 dollars that i didnt have... damn ! so all togethor i have spent 7,800 for my 1993 300zx n/a
1,200 for front end work
2,000 for matenince 120K
1,000 for performence stuff... sigh....

Can you take the wheels in the front by hand, and make them move, forward and backward by trying to rotate them?
If you grab the wheel with both hands and try and rotate it, and the wheel flops forward and backward, then you have some wear in the bushings. If you can take the ball joints on your tie rod ends, and the clunk and flop around, then they are a givin. You can take it to a shop, they will do this, and tell you what you need replaced. I don't think it's steering or alignment really. But, a control arm that keeps everything aligned when forces like braking are applied to the wheel trying to push it out of alignment. My thought is that a bushing is allowing too much movement of the steering/strut assembly.

haha i bought mine for 4k and put another 4k into rebuilding the heads and that whole big job within a month or so. so after tires and some other things that went wrong, i've got about 9k in a car that's worth around 5. shiz happens on these cars. and fixes are oh so expensive. that's the main reason i'm still half way contemplating going to a Z31 instead. it's just hard to let go of all the money i've got in this one.

yeah that's what i think too. but it looks to me that there are about 3 different bushings that could be causing that. maybe it's all of them .

Alignment shops have the support of a nice alignment rack.. That means that they can see things easily.

Get a second person, and drive the car up on some cheap ramps. Get under the car and watch what the bushings are doing in real time while moving, and wiggling the wheels by hand, and even the steering wheel. It's not a science. Just careful trained observation that the shops use. I went from a custom 4x4 shop that used to do this all the time. You just need to watch, and find out what is loose, or binding, or clunking around. Look long enough, you will find the bad spot. If the alignment was off, you would see the results in your tires first.

Look here.
http://www.autospeednet.com/sites/3d...ule/wheels/29/

i know the alignment is fine. i got it aligned and hoped that it would fix this problem and it didn't. i'm sure it's a loose bushing of some sort thanks for all the advise ratfink. i'll check all that out when i get home this weekend and hopefully have a better idea.

No problem. If you have trouble on ramps, you might try lifting the front end completely, and working the wheels up and down too. Just have your helper force against the wheel in multiple directions, both sides for long enough to check the linkage out for each movement.

WARPED ROTERS!

Warped rotors will vibrate the car no matter how hard you hit the brakes...

It could be the brakes. Could be uneven wear spots on the pads. Causing a pulsing on a wheel making the car vibrate under light brake applications.

I love your thinking with Nismo, and Homo. I will remember that next time I meet up with a bunch of Hondas. haha

i forgot to say that i've had all 4 brake rotors turned. the severity was reduced, but the problem persists.

i was thinking f making a shirt with that on it.
kinda like this

NISSAN= nissan motorsports
TRD= toyota racing development
STI= subaru technica international
HOMO= Honda Motorsports

or something along those lines.
if i make them who would want one?

i'd pay no more than..... $7

they cost about 7 to make if i did it it would be an even 12 shipped

i'd prob get one. if it was a cool color.
your package is in the mail. they were reluctant to ship a body part, but i had to get rid of it.

lol k thanks

Ok did you change the pads when you did this? did you allow for proper brake in time of freshly turned rotors?

If you had the rotors turned, and it reduced the severity, i'm going to say it's your brake pads....


As far as the shirts, I want one with out the TRD and STI junk on it.

Maybe nismo and homo sayings on front. Z on back?

Black in color?

well, when i did the front ones, i kept the old pads. when i did the rears, i got new pads. dumb, yes, but it surely didn't cause too much harm and i'm just constantly poor. as for break in, i asked the guy that turned them if they needed break in. he said just do two controlled 60-30 brakes fairly hard and that would be all they needed.