I have a new one for my 91 Loyale wagon. It's a 4WD with 5 speed manual tranny and NO TURBO! and I have seen my share of the typical probs over the years. What with owning an 87 DL 3 door for 5 years and then 2 of the 91 loyales in matching champagne paint jobs, I've changed my share of brakes and cv axles. This prob is new. I get an intermittent steering wheel pull to the right as I'm cruising along. At first it started at low speeds usually as I was decelerating in gear. but now when I'm motoring along at 55 not accelerating at all I get these little tweak pulls to the right. I'm wondering if it's the Differential locking up intermittently or what? I am somewhat confused by this one. I have a bad Power steering pump that is able to hold no fluid so I have been ignoring it in place. My first thought was that it may be getting some remnants of fluid but why would it input a steering jerk in one direction if it wasn't being turned that way. I am stymied. I looked through the search function and didn't find anything on this but I have to admit I don't live on these boards enough to say I know them like the back of my hand. Any help would be appreciated, Thanks, Sincerely Trent T

I'd suspect a front c.v. joint or a wheel bearing is about to cause your car to crash off the road.

another vote for CV joint. if the outer joint binds up, it'll pull the wheel off to one side for just a moment.

 

IIRC, it's the side that the wheel is pulling away from. i.e. left joint causes a pull to the right.

Thanks, I've had several CV's go on me and none felt like this but that doesn't mean it's still not a cv/bearing issue. I'll get in there and take a look this weekend. I've pretty much parked it for now and am waiting on some new brake parts anyway so why not replace a cv while I'm at it. I have a new one from autozone just sitting there waiting for this eventuallity.

I have a new one from autozone...

 

Ewww. Their rebuilder standards are really REALLY low. I have seen them as far as 1.5" too long (compressed) or 1" too short (compressed). At least they have lifetime warrantee. Known as the "replace it free once a year for the lifetime of the car" warrantee. If I were you, I would return it, and take the 40 bucks, and have your old one rebuilt by a quality axle shop in your area. It will last 15x longer.

It's not a rebuild, it's a new manufacture which I've actually had good luck with. Their rebuilds are total crap and I've had them fail in under a month but this new one has lasted longer than the Suby genuine replacement rebuilds

I had an interesting thing happen with a cv axle, the boot on it was torn, and I knew it, but was too lazy to replace it I guess. Anyways, went through a huge mud hole, packed that thing full of crap. It shook the hell out of me before it got cleaned out. I didn't waste another day, I replaced it. What a ride.

Yeah, they can really make the drive interesting when they go.

 

I had a that had broken the cage that holds the balls in the cv, it was ok sometimes but every half mile or so it would just grab and rip the steering wheel around hard for a fraction of a second even though I was holding on real tight and going slow. The tyres were chirping and it was a real tense situation getting back to the workshop with it.

 

It was the cv on the side it pulled to in that case. Pulled left, left cv was gone(left is off the road here in New Zealand luckily).

OK, so I dug into it this weekend and yep it was the right CV. It had a half inch slit in the boot and all the grease did a Houdini on me. so I pulled out my spare CV and went to put it on hoping the knuckle would just slide off with the bearings and seals intact as they weren't that old. I had done a full rebuild under a year before. Nope the inner stayed on the CV and refused to budge for a good hour. Reason I cared was I needed it done this weekend and wanted the inner grease seal cause no one in my area stocked that part. My local Autozone has the outer seal and the bearings in house but don't stock the inner for some retarded reason. So I tried to reuse the seal. No go. It got all dorked in the removal effort. So I ordered that after I went to do the rear brake shoes and discovered a leaking brake cyclinder. No one in the region stocks that either so I ordered the seal and two new cylinders. I then worked on the wifes 2003 Legacy outback wagon as it had dropped 2 bolts on the drivers side window mechanism. I recovered and replaced the bolts but got covered in that black tar goo they seal the plastic with. Acetone seems to remove it eventually but it burns in all the cuts I recieved doing the suspension on my 91 loyale. Overall a fun filled weekend. Next I need to work on the fuel shutoff solenoid on my 92 International school bus. Yay!