Problem 1: the car had a condition like really bad torque steer. Transitioning between light throttle & no throttle at speeds around 40 mph would make the steering suddenly pull to the side. I step on the gas, it pulls & I have to correct. I let off the gas & I have to re-correct the steering back to where I started. I knew it wasn't real torque steer, because these little engines aren't exactly what you'd call "torque gifted" plus it was most consistently noticeable at light throttle.

I had "bad CV joint" rattle, so I decided that new half-shafts were in order. I also wanted to replace steering tie rods & joints, as my experience shows they need it after 15 years & 100k miles.

Problem 2: at highway speeds of 60 mph and above, while on the throttle, a violent car-shaking vibration sets in that increases with speed. A couple years ago, this shook the muffler off the car. Its been fine for driving around town but now the vibration was happening at lower speeds, & I didn't want the car shedding any more parts. The wheels & tires were balanced & the front wheel bearings were new, so I suspected that the CV's were so sloppy & out of balance that this was contributing to the shaking. I figured I would check motor mounts, too.

So here's some pictures I took while the Renault underwent some fairly major surgery.

Half-shaft replacement is pretty straightforward. The passenger side is a typical design, but the inner joint on the driver side directly interfaces with the differential, & in fact is lubricated by transmission fluid, so replacement involves draining the tranny. With the passenger shaft removed, I could see a tear in the inner boot. I tore out a chunk of rubber to see what was inside. No grease left, just some slimy brown rusty stuff. The red arrow shows at least 1 needle bearing that was floating freely in there! Its a miracle the car even drove. The next picture shows a flange where the inner joint mates with the output stub on the tranny. The flange, not present on the replacement axle, probably helps protect the oil seal where the stub exits the tranny.

The next pictures show a shiny new (rebuilt) driver side axle, & the receptacle where it plugs into. The boot itself does not rotate, rather there is a bearing that allows the axle to spin while the boot is clamped stationary to the transmission case, forming a fluid-tight seal. The picture showing the driver-side inner joint receptacle also shows the automatic gear selector lever. Despite getting the rebuilt axles from a known good shop, the quality was so-so. The joints supposedly aren't rebuildable now that new manufacturer's rebuild kits have been exhausted. So, these were sold as "rebuilt to the best quality possible given the original engineering design of the joints." Specifically, I was dissatisfied with how (not) smoothly the cups spun around the needle bearings on the replacement axle's inner joint spider. Well, if you remove a circlip you can remove the spider. The original spider was much cleaner & smoother, so I swapped it onto the replacement axle. In the picture you can see some pock marks that show the replacement spider was hammered pretty good during removal for the rebuild. It was easy to swap the spiders, so I don't know why anyone had to wail on it. The final picture shows the used axle with the spider removed. The dirt specks happened after I removed it, my trans fluid was not cruddy.

With the wheels & axles removed, I was able to access the steering gear. The inner joint & tie rod is an integral item; the joint socket screws onto the threaded rack & is hex-shaped so you can grip it with a wrench. Supposedly this joint can be unscrewed with the rack in place, but practically I've never seen how. With everything in place you can't torque on the inner joint to unscrew it, because you would twist the rack within its seals & the torque of the wrench would bear against the pinion. Also, there are rivets, roll pins, or set screws that keep the joint from unscrewing. So, I drained the fluid & removed the rack. A real PITA! You must undo the U-joint where the steering column attaches to the gear & I ended up removing the mounting blocks on the cross member. This allowed me to remove the fluid-return hard pipe to clean & check for rust. Somehow I got the rack removed with the 2 pressure pipes attached, but I could not get it back in that way- they would always snag on something, even with the axles & rear mount out of the way. So, I removed the pipes, situated the rack, then reinstalled the pipes. With the rack out, you can clamp the driver side joint in a vise & loosen the opposite joint, then carefully clamp the flats of the rack teeth & undo the passenger side joint. The driver side inner joint had over a millimeter of play in the direction of the red arrow. That explains some of the sloppy steering!! The other pictures show the steering gear pre-cleaning, & post-cleaning with the new tie rods installed. I also replaced one of the bellows as the rubber was delaminating. The generic replacement from Napa (including the hole for the air exchange pipe) fits well but is not a perfect replacement. I included a couple pictures of the tilt steering column in case you've never seen one.