Vibrations

[wparslow]

OK, here I go again in my quest to create the perfect +2.

My car has always vibrated beyond 70mph. General response from garages is "well that shouldn't matter should it guv?". Anyway, it does, and it's deeply irritating. now, the car has hhad its driveshaft balanced, its wheels balanced, tyres changed, wheels and tyres changed and solid CV drive shafts fitted - and it still does it. It is a whole car vibration, not seeming to come from any particular corner and its intensity will vary as you go round a long corner.

Any ideas, this one is killing me with frustration.

Thanks guys

Wayne

[bengalcharlie]

HI Wayne,

just a few other suggestions:
diff or exhaust touching the chassis?
worn engine mounts?
can not hink of anything else at present but I can understand your frustration and you must be dying to fix it.
good luck

Robin

PS my exhaust is touching the chassis slightly and I have that fixed next week for the same reasons.

[Dave-M]

Wayne,
Had a similar problem some time ago on a Baby Elan, It drove me crazy trying to cure it. Guess what it turned out to be slight wear in the front shockers. In your case it may be front and rear, who knows.
When I swapped the shockers there was a slight "play" between bump and rebound. On the car you could not possibly have found this.
This is just a suggestion as it is a very difficult problem to cure but, if your shockers are old, it might be worth the effort to check.
Regards
Dave-M

[wparslow]

Thanks for the suggestions guys but the exhaust is not touching any bodywork and the car has just had new 2.25 inch springs and uprated dampers fitted all round.

Engine mounts are worth a look though and as the car is going in for a bottom end rebuild shortly we might find it's the cure. Good grief if that doesn't do it there's nowhere else to look that I can think of.

[rgh0]

What frequency is the vibration at? does it change with engine speed or wheel road speed. Does it appear in all gears or just top gear. Is it present under power and when coasting or just one. Does it dissappear when then car is taken out of gear or the clutch depressed. Does it only happen in corners - left or right. Does it dissappear under brakes?

Basically try everything you can think off to identify when it is present and when it is not based on this you will then be able to diagnose the cause.

Rohan

[wparslow]

Kicks in at about 70 mph and then increases in frequency as speed increases. It is a strong enough vibration to rattle the door seals by 80mph and at 90+ it has reached a higher frequency that is not so obtrusive. It happens in any gear and it happens when declutched at those speeds.

[1964 S1]

My +2 had a whale of a vibration at speed, until I removed the CV jointed rear drive shafts and replaced them with stock shafts and rotoflexes. If the vibration remains the same at 70mph when you depress the clutch, I'm guessing the problem is one of a few items spinning round behind the transmission. Has a real tire shop balanced the tires and made SURE all wheels (and tires) are absolutely straight?

[wparslow]

It vibrated just the same on standard rotoflex CVs before I had the solids fitted. As for wheels/tyres it has had two sets of tyres on the first set of wheels and also been tried on a completely different set of wheels and tyres - no difference.

W

[Foxie]

Does the vibration come mostly through the steering wheel, the driving seat, or both ?

Have you jacked the wheels and checked for run out (warped wheel or hub)

Can you get a place to check the balance with the wheels on the car ?

Is it a loose sill closing plate or some other panel vibrating in the slipstream ?

I once had a vibration problem after fitting a set of Spax shocks (supplied by Spyder) Eventually identified as the upper rubber bushes on the front shocks not being compressed sufficiently to hold the shock firmly in the turret top. Cured by fitting about 1/2" of packing washers.

Sean Murray

[dougweall]

Sounds like it could be a prop shaft uj to me.

[worzel]

I had this trouble for years (since 1978 when I bought the car)- coming and going in varying intensities.

Although mine is the 2 seater I'm sure this might apply to you.

I tried everything- spacing the diff, gearbox/engine mounts, tyres, pressures, tracking etc.

Had the wheels balanced many times but this never completely cured the problem.

Only fixed it when I switched to minilites- no vibration at all thru the wheel or body.

Probably cured by the greater accuracy of the alloys plus perhaps the thicker metal somehow "damps out" any residual harshness.

Problem hasn't recurred since the wheels went on (about 15 months ago).

Might be worth checking to see if the rims on yours are running true relative to the centres (two of my original steel ones weren't).

John

[alaric]

I had almost identical symptoms on my old 1400 mini. Turned out to be the locking wheel nuts causing each wheel to go out of balance. Obviously this doesn't apply to the spinners on the elan, but the wheels not being true on the hub, or worn hub bearings / shafts / ill fitting rear wheel hub (on the spline of the outboard driveshaft) may all cause a problem. Also, use of the car with worn bearings will cause impact damage on the shafts and the hub into which the bearings fit, so that even fitting of new bearings doesn't solve the problem.

Will a dynamic balance pick up the worn hub when it's not under load; there could be impact damage from use with a worn bearing or ill fitting bearing?

If it's worse going round a long corner I think it's indicative of a hub / shaft / bearing problem.

The speed range suggests to me that it's not the prop shaft; I would expect you to have noticed it at lower speeds too - I'm just guessing at this though.

If the steering wheel is not shaking, I'd suspect one of the rear hubs not the front.

Try swapping the wheels around; if it's something to do with the wheels, then you should feel it through the steering wheel more with some permutations than others.

Hope this helps.

Sean.

[andyhodg]

Hi there

I had a similar problem on my Plus 2 with steel wheels. It was cured by fitting alloys. I put it down to the steel whells running out of true. Plus a couple of comments from the guy balancing the steel wheels that "these are difficult to get balanced" Which I took to mean that he could not do it but if he said that I wouldn't pay him.

[1964 S1]

After reading all this I'm back to thinking maybe it's the steel wheels too. Are the two sets you've tried stock steels? I've always considered my +2 sort of a gazelle, very long legged compared to my S1. The +2 has a suspension flexibility reach not found in the smaller Elan, it almost floats. If one of the wheels were the slightest bit out, I can understand how it could resonate back in at high speed throughout a +2 coupe.

[david.g.chapman]

I has the same problem on my +2 with steel wheels, vibration only above 70 mph.

I was on the point of switching to alloys, but changed the steel wheels instead for ones with lateral runout less than 2 mm (my old ones were up to 5 mm).

This helped a bit.

I then changed the front tyres to AVON 165 x 13's mid range tyres (old tyres were budget makes). The vibration disappeared completely!

Try again with good wheels (steel or alloy, AND good tyres).

Good luck.

Dave Chapman.