Wheel bearing question.

[Vette_Newb]

I finally got my 89 out for a little trip Sunday, ran great and gets awesome gas mileage. I did have an issue that was unsettling. At highway speeds, this thing seems to "roadwalk" from the rear. If I punch it a bit and change lanes to pass it got a little squirly. Would this be wheel bearings, u-joints or worse? The car does not have much in the way of "growling" in the rear like a typical wheel bearing and I just had new tires and a 4 wheel alignment. The guy doing the alingment checked all the suspension parts with a pry bar and seemed to be knowledgable about the vette suspension. He seemed to think the suspension parts looked good (but he didn't do an in-depth check). I jacked the car up and wiggled both rear wheels, they have minor left-right up-down movement.

On hard takeoffs the car is stout and feels tight, this is strictly a highway speed issue so far.

 

[ErnieN85]

From the shop manual ther should be virtually no play in the rear wheels! So if you can see them move it's not good. that said often times bad shocks and even tires will cause the same thing to happen. if you can switch the tires front to back or side to side and see if it changes. as to the shocks if they are not leaking, it's kind of hard to tell unless they are really bad. if they are not bilsteins and have over 30,000 I'd change them. Wheel bearings are the highest ticket item there!

 

[alan ream]

From the shop manual ther should be virtually no play in the rear wheels! So if you can see them move it's not good. that said often times bad shocks and even tires will cause the same thing to happen. if you can switch the tires front to back or side to side and see if it changes. as to the shocks if they are not leaking, it's kind of hard to tell unless they are really bad. if they are not bilsteins and have over 30,000 I'd change them. Wheel bearings are the highest ticket item there!

I have a 95 what seems to have what you described. When the rear is jacked up, I can feel just the slightest slop. It's almost as if the wheel bearing is just 1/8 turn from being snug.

On my 85 I could tighten up the bearing (on the fronts) but don't remember about the rears. Is there any adjustment in the bearings???
Alan

 

[ErnieN85]

The C4 wheel bearings are a factory sealed unit. no adjustment is possile.

 

[Eagle85C4]

You should be a bit more specific with the symptoms...
On my 85 when I would give it the gas the rear would swing to the right and when I let off it would go to the left. The rear wiggled if you will...I found it to be the rear half shaft on the passenger side the u-joints were completely shot. The symmetry
of the rear uses the half shaft as a lower a frame. Due to the constant pressure on the shaft it is harder to diagnose. I had to jack the car up and all the tugging and moving did not show it until I rotated the tire in park and saw the movement in the ujoints. And although foolish of me at the time I just replaced the one side and was amazed at the difference. Six months later the other side went out. Best bet is to replace all 6 at the same time to safe and sure.
Older engineer in the apartments was one of the original for GM corvette and said the wheel bearings were designed to last 150,000 miles. Funny as mine went over 150,000 the bearings started to get loose and following the ruts made by the big trucks caused the car to be very unstable on the hiway. So I replaced all 4 at the same time and now it rides like a new one again.

 

[Hib Halverson]

if the car doesn't track straight under acceleration, I'd check these areas:

1) wheel bearings. They must meet service manual specs for play and the manual gives a checking procedure

2) axle shaft u-joint condition


3) rear control arm or strut rod bushing condition


4) powertrain mount condition---there are four, two at the engine and two holding the diff.

5) rear tires...though a tire problem is probably remote in this case.

 

[tyrel]

I pretty much agree with what everyone else has said. My rear was a little squirrelly too, but I just put in new shocks and the car feels so tight now. I've owned three C4s and they all felt like they were wandering just a little, so maybe it's normal. But these new shocks made a huge difference, I got them from tirerack.com.

Are your camber bolts okay? One of mine actually came loose and the wheel was tilted inward for a couple of days until I noticed it. It was allowing the wheel to slop around, can you believe it. The last place that aligned it must not have torqued it properly.

 

[Vette_Newb]

Thanks for all the replys.

I am taking it in for a good checkup as soon as I have some free time since it's not a daily car.

 

[RedRagTop]

From what I have seen from similar posts on the CAC our cars tend to wiggle a bit and follow and deviations in the road surface. If you have put on new skins I would ask did it do this before you changed things?
I got used to mine, don't really notice it now...

 

[Vette_Newb]

I didn't drive it on the highway before I put the new tires on. The tires that were on it when I bought it were miled out and were dry-rotted. So thats one of the 1st things I did. After reading all the replys I feel more and more like it's not going to be a big issue, maybe something I need to get used to.
I had an RX7 with Nittos that followed every line on the road, but it had no power steering.

 

[Vette_Newb]

All is well with the suspension and the wheel bearings.

As for the front shocks... hehe New ones coming.