so im now getting a funky vibration

[CHIF8008]

so i recently broke the welds all around my exhaust headers from excessive skidding from being low. so i pulled the exhaust off and welded it back together, plus added steel skid plates to protect from grinding any new holes into the exhaust tubing. while i was under the car my brother pointed out that one of my tranny mount bolts was sitting sideways! the one mount had stared to slip from between the tranny mount forks. so i loosened the mounts, and pushed them back so that they sat straight up and down again. Fixed a potentially bad problem right? NO, on the drive home i had this vibration in the drive train. vibration is felt when accelerating at all speeds, and has this whine noise that goes away when you let off the gas. the car feels much slower/ heavier also.

i did not have this problem before, and even for the two days that i did drive it with the bad exhaust leak- i had no feeling of slow/ or of a heavy car. it was just loud and annoying. so it must be from the mounts

so i am confused, me fixing the falling out mount made for vibrations? i put the car on stands again and the mounts are still sitting straight up and down. my tranny is leaking oil on the mounts- and i believe that is why one of them was slipping. just cannot figure out the vibration thing. my guibo is good and its not a vibration from the drive shaft, i know how that feels.

any thoughts guys? it was my birthday yesterday and having my car run like that kinda killed my spirit

[Keanan]

Uh happy birthday, maybe for your birthday gift you can fix your leak and put in new mounts.

[jlevie]

It sounds to me like the car needs new engine & transmission mounts and probably a new drive shaft.

[cabriodster87]

When you touched down, exhaust, trans, and mounts cracked. lol, jk. No i hope not.

[S62]

Sounds like the engine and/or tranny mounts. Happy late birthday! get drunk to forget about this problem

[CHIF8008]

engine mounts are good, drive shaft is good. nothing is broken, i have been scraping for quite awhile. the tranny mounts are fine, maybe the oil caused the rubber to change size and alter the geometry? its all i can think of


when money comes in ill buy the kit to fix the leak at the top of the tranny and get new mounts and hope for the best. the vibration is not horrible, just noticeable to me.

[CHIF8008]

pic of the mounts: yes they are not stock, but i have been running them for about 1 1/2 years with no problems. the upper part of the mount is a hard rubber and the peach is a softer rubber

pics of exhaust for good measure:



and the over kill armor haha:

[jlevie]

A vibration only under acceleration that seems to come from under the car will almost always be a bad drive shaft and/or a bad guibo.

Motor and transmission mount can look okay while they are on the car but the damage will be obvious when they are off and compared to new parts. If neither has been replaced it is almost a certainty that they are bad by this time. Those transmission mounts don't look that bad. But they don't look all that good either.

The leak at the rear of the transmission will usually be from worn output or selector shaft seals (which are inexpensive). On a car with the sheet metal shift console the bolts that mount the console to the transmission can be loose and cause a leak.

Oh yeah, the car is way too low for the roads you drive and/or has too soft a set of springs. get the car further up in the air or switch to much stiffer springs.

[CHIF8008]

thanks, ill just get some new mounts
i don't have soft springs, and my ride does not bounce. scraping is from speed bumps and driveways

[jlevie]

If you are dragging the exhaust on speed bumps, when traversed at a crawl the car is way too low.

[MozMike]

Please let me know what happens when you replace the mounts.
I have the exact same problem my automatic E30 it just started vibrating at all speeds when accelerating and also started making that annoying winding sound I also felt the loss of power, I noticed if I reved it hard it would not stay in gear, this was surprising considering I had no trany problems at all before this happened out of nowhere.

I took mine to a specialist and he said its my transmission pump that went out and now I'm looking at a $2500 bill.

[CHIF8008]

I can't get over most speed bumps.I just change my route.

Well I fixed the problem,I noticed that the bolts I was using would max out the treads before the mount were even tight. So I put in bolts with a longer section of threads.I also saw that the transmission brace was adjustable-so I moved it farther under the tranny to allow the mounts to sit farther back in the forks on the tranny. I just tightened it all up and instantly the vibration was gone and amazingly it got it's preppiness back.

I'm super happy,although it is odd that I didn't have the problem since now. I guess the oil shrank the rubber enough to throw off the geometry. And I'm sorry MozMike but I have a manual,not a auto. You may have internal problems if your mounts are good.

Thank you for the responce and comments guys.

[RawToast]

BTW you're doing it right with the low