La Vibracion!

After owning the 20 years old Civic EF with lots of rattles, squeks and other unknown noises from the whole car, I've become very sensitive to any sort of sounds and vibration coming from the car that I drive. So recently I noticed that my car is vibrating pretty bad whenever I gunned down the pedal to 8500rpm. Not just that, on 4th gear and on 60kmh and climbing, the car will also shake! It felt quite scary especially when I'm overtaking on the highway as if the frontside of the car is falling apart.

So I took my time on the weekend to check my car in Sunway at Hiper Racing. I suspected that either one of the four engine mount has broken but my assumption was wrong. The mountings are in good condition without any sign of damage. John of Hiper Racing checked thoroughly and confirmed that my right side driveshaft is the cause of the vibration (visual inspection showed no sign of torn CV boot cover etc!). Since buying a brand new set of driveshaft is gonna cost me a bomb (about RM1,200 for a piece), he suggested me to get a used one - which is quite impossible when the time is almost at 6.30pm on a Saturday! I made few trunk calls for solution but to no avail. Luckily another good DC5 friend of mine, Aloysius dropped by to John's place and he recommended me to meet the 'Driveshaft King' in Kota Kemuning the next day. Appointment was set with the guy named Ah Seng and on Sunday morning I took a slow drive to Kota Kemuning...hoping to solve the irritating vibration.

Once I have settled down at Ah Seng's workshop, he took no time to test the car. After a brief 10 mins of driving my car he came out and started to dismantle the right driveshaft. From the outside the driveshaft looked perfect with no sign of bent whatsoever (Thank god!). So he went straight to get the entire driveshaft dismantled and found out that there's few scratches on the inner CV wall. I'm not sure how that happened but most likely it was caused by the regular 'rempiting' of the car (hard launching/gear shifting etc. Well it's a Type-R so it must be driven hard right?). As what Ah Seng said, newer cars are prone to this injury (material issue perhaps?) and the internal surface of the CV joint should be as smooth as baby's butt. Once any scratches or cracks occur on the inside, it will contribute to the instability of the rod thus the vibration will appear.

So what Ah Seng did is he took about another 10 mins to look for the replacement of the inner CV joint from THOUSANDS of used driveshafts lying on the floor of his workshop. He found one that is similar on the sizes and weight with the Type-R, cleaned up and reinstall new bearings, seal, and grease and put everything back to my car. After 45 mins of anticipating for positive outcome, he asked me to drive the car. I took on the straight road in front of his shop and tested the car on every gear........and the vibration is entirely gone! I even kept the needle on the 8000rpm mark for few seconds and the car is as steady as before. No more signs of vibration coming from the dashboard, gear stick etc. Woohoo!

I'm so glad that Black Mamba is being perfect again but the costs incurred for this repair made me even happier - RM170 all in! Perhaps it's time for me to ease a bit and lessen the abuse on Black Mamba..Haha. Thanks to the 'King' for making full use of his expertise and saving me from spending another RM500-600 on a used driveshaft. And to Aloysius, dinner's on me man!

This is how a pair of DC5 driveshafts look like.

This is the inner CV joint. Photo taken from the web. Couldn't find any pic on the internal side of it.

The King's Den: Just look at the driveshafts! There are more on few other spots in the shop. The most I've seen in my entire life. Haha.

Costs: RM170 for a used inner CV joint c/w installation

Where: Kota Kemuning, Selangor (Drop me an email for Ah Seng's phone no and direction to his place)

Other Alternatives: www.driveshaftshop.com -> Customized driveshafts tailor-made to your spec.