Dodge: 1993 voyager/caravan

evo_fxrp wrote: 
My first impression is that one of the inside cv joints is really
getting bad. I had this happen when I put a reman. axle in the left
side. The joint was faulty and when I drove it the van would wobble -
the faster I went, the worse the wobble. I put it back up on jackstands
, rotated the front tires, and found that once every rotation, the
engine/tranaxle actually moved sideways back & forth about a l/2". I
couldn't see anything obviously wrong with the new axle, but somehow it
was changing length as it rotated and pushed and pulled on the tranaxle.
I remedied the problem by cleaning and repacking the old cv shaft, and
putting a new boot on it. Took the new axle back for a refund. It may
not be your problem but you might start by putting yours up on
jackstands, and checking. Also grab the front tires and yank back &
forth to see if one of the front wheel bearings is gone.

By your description it seems that the symptoms are similar. I suspected one
of the drive shafts but dismissed it thinking I would see a wobble in the
front wheel. It had not occurred to me that the axle could be pushing on
the differential. Now that I think about it.... about 3 months ago, my wife
(primary driver of said van) told me that there was something wrong with the
right front tire. There was a rotational scrape and a good size chunk of
rubber missing from the sidewall. Somehow the tire held air and we replaced
it immediately. There were also rotational scrapes on the edge of the
corresponding hubcap and on the lip of the wheel. She swears that she didn't
hit anything but it looked like she may have been parked on a curb and
scraped the right side wheel when backing up. I wonder if the right side
axle may have gotten a slight bend or minor joint damage in the process.
That would explain why the wobble has gotten progressively worse. Didn't hit
anything my A$$.
Once again many thanks!