Help: My 240 has the shakes!

[ecugrad]

The car has had a small front end shake that went away within a mile or two, I attributed it to the car sitting alot on concrete and the tires having a "flat" spot of sorts. I had the car aligned and it kinda got worse after the alignment.

It has progressively got worse. I assumed its a wheel weight that has fallen off and figure I will swap front to rear to fix the problem. Its not. When I drive it, it feels like the front wheel is going to fall off. It seems to start at 53 mph and up. It feels like the drivers side that is funky.

- I have tried another wheel on the offending corner. No change
-Both front wheel bearings are virtually new (less than 4,000 miles on both fronts). Both have no play.
-Lower ball joints have about 20k miles and have no play
-Tie rod ends are probably original but have no play.

Any ideas of what to look for? Everything I check seems to be tight.

[a_ahmed]

lol i have the same thing on my volvo 850, its my winter car, so ill get it fixed before winter :P I hit a giant crater in the rain (bastard city wont pay for damages -- they claimed nothing wrong with road... after i reported it they fixed the road three days later urgh.. bastards).

Go to a shop that can do wheel balancing.. simple

Try as you said yourself to swap rear to front tires and see if ur butt starts shaking instead lol.

[ecugrad]

Try as you said yourself to swap rear to front tires and see if ur butt starts shaking instead lol.

F to R swap made no difference.

[Bumnah]

It is possible to have play in the ball joints without a tear in the boot. Sadly, I don't know how to test a balljoints for too much play.

I would check the run out on the hub, perhaps the surface is slightly warped? I'd also check the run out with the disc on.

I'd replaced the outer tie rods if they're still the originals. Replacements aren't too expensive, but replacing a part and not fixing the problem would be hard to swallow.

I've got a little play in my driver side wheel bearing. That causes a slight vibration @ 80 mph. Drives me nuts!

[crashjust4kix]

I had a similar issue, and it ended up being a decent bit of play in the rack. I readjusted the preload and it smoothed out nicely. Might be worth checking?

[ecugrad]

I had a similar issue, and it ended up being a decent bit of play in the rack. I readjusted the preload and it smoothed out nicely. Might be worth checking?

Could you feel the play when you took the tie rods loose?

[AceInHole]

Check the front tension rods and the upper shock mounts as well. Spherical bearing upper shock mounts wear faster than anything, and the cheaper ones don't last long at all.

[ecugrad]

I had a similar issue, and it ended up being a decent bit of play in the rack. I readjusted the preload and it smoothed out nicely. Might be worth checking?

This fix keeps popping up in my searching, Nissan actually has a TSB for it.

I have several things to check, I'll report back when I find something.