Suzuki Club UK

Hi guys,

Here's a problem I've been trying to fix for a while. It's a shuddering vibration that manifests itself when I have the vehicle under load, like with 4 people in the car, or I'm towing or accelerating up a hill. It happens in all gears, the higher the load, the more the vibes. It's hardly noticeable with one or two people on the flat.

The rear prop shaft is very low mileage and definitely aligned, it happens in 2 and 4 wheel drive and always at roughly the same engine revs.

I am thinking perhaps the shaft between the g/box and t/box may be misaligned or worn or perhaps it may be the front drive shaft that's the problem. Would a bad front drive shaft shudder in just 2 wheel drive and cause a shudder? But as it seems to be rev related it does make me think it's the input shaft.

Because the vehicle is in Ibiza and I'm here at the moment I can't just check for things as and when I learn about the possible causes, so I'm trying to find out the most probable cause and take the spare part out with me if necessary when next I visit.

Could be an engine mount, because of the captive design it's often hard to tell if they have failed until you remove them to check. I spent ages checking tbox, gearbox mounts and other things for the cause of a similar sounding vibration the first time I broke a standard engine mount man that was a loooong time ago now

ScottieJ wrote:Could be an engine mount, because of the captive design it's often hard to tell if they have failed until you remove them to check. I spent ages checking tbox, gearbox mounts and other things for the cause of a similar sounding vibration the first time I broke a standard engine mount man that was a loooong time ago now

Thank you Scottie, sounds very feasible due to the age of the car and the mileage, (140,000km), also, I suspect the poor thing was a barn find when the (wretched thieving) dealer sold it to me. Or should I say a desert find. It was from Almeria, hot, dry, arid, which is why the body and the chassis are in such good order.

All of the rubber items may have suffered in the heat as it came with tyres with great tread, but after me nearly spinning off the road in the wet one day I discovered that they were so rock hard, there was just no grip in them.

I would definitely have a good look at the rear gearbox mount as well as the engine mounts. My mates one looked good but came straight apart when we levered the gearbox up a little at the back

twiss wrote:I would definitely have a good look at the rear gearbox mount as well as the engine mounts. My mates one looked good but came straight apart when we levered the gearbox up a little at the back

I will, in fact I've been offered a genuine 30,000km gearbox which I'd like to fit, so a good time to do those checks and change the clutch and noisy thrust bearing. In fact nearly the whole drive train is up for grabs, and the engine! Not the tbox though, that's already gone.

The donor vehicle lived right on the coast and was only used when the property owner was on holiday, so the poor thing just rotted away really badly leaving the other bits with hardly any miles on them.