That seems way over my head. Is there a way to check that without having to completely disassemble the differential? I do not have the technical expertise to take apart the diff.

 

just remove the differential cover and check the carrier for hair line cracks

clean off the carrier with cleaner , a hair line crack or even a crack is visible to the eye

 

If that is the case, how much is it to have someone replace this gear? I know there are some things in there that need to be set up in a certain way (which I don't know how to do).

 

no no no !!!

the carrier is the part in which the ring gear is bolted to .

the carrier needs to be checked for hair line cracks

not sure of the cost to replace around your area if the carrier is cracked and needs replaced

 

Did upper control arm, lower controll arm ball joints, new tires, balanced and alignment. Replace shoes and hardware on drums but didn't replace drums. I have heard that drums out of round or out of balance can be the problem.

 

Fighting something similar, got rid of most of it with a rear drum change.

The ones I pulled off were kinda on the wimpy side, and one had lots of weights and both were out of round like someone had stomped on the brakes when they were hot. Not something I noticed, but the mechanic at NTB helping to track down my vibration did. The new 'basic' drums from O'reillys were nice, almost heavy duty compared to what had been put on before. Put the new one against the old and the out of round was VISIBLE! Going to get the front rotors turned in the next few days and hope to be back to the smooth ride I had a few months ago.

 

Does or did those out of round drums cause your brakes e pedal to pulse?

 

Yes, that was the final big clue in it being the brake problem was the pulsing pedal. Although the weird part was that initially it DID NOT pulse the pedal.

After all is said and done the rear drums were visibly out of round, I'm guessing in the neighborhood of 3/16". The front right disc was .015 warped, the front left only .005. I still have a little bit of vibration, but the shop I got the tires from had a problem with it's balancer a while back. I took them to a different store of the same chain and got rid of most of my vibration back then, going to do the same in the near future as well as change all four shocks. They look like the originals, the outer shell on the rears are rusted through in spot.

If all goes well I should be running smooth after all that.

FYI, for those of you that have four wheel disc, you need to realize that the rears are quite often a disc / mini drum combo. The disc for main braking, and a small drum break inside the rotor for your emergency brake. Lots of problems stem from that little drum brake. Even something as simple as build up from lack of use.

Found that out with my '05 F-150. Chased a vibration for over a year until one of the guys popped the back disc's and cleaned the inner surface of the little drum. I'd never used the emergency brake and it had an uneven coating of dust and dirt caked inside.

 

I know this is an ancient thread but I don't feel bad about continuing it as vibration seems to be the bane of Ranger owners. I have a 2001 xlt 2 wheel drive and have had progressively worsening vibration for years now. Same thing as others have said 60/65 to 75 miles per hour I get horrible shimmying which has gotten so bad I'm getting scared to drive at highway speeds. Vibe seems to go away almost entirely at 75+. To give a little history I had the original manual tranny go out at around 90k. For some explainable reason first gear exploded and took some of the other gears. I found a used transmission with about the same mileage for about 300 bucks locally. If I'm not mistake these trannys are Panasonic. Anyways, changed the clutch and the pressure plate while I had the trans off. The truck ran fine after that for a while but then the vibration started and has gotten progressively worse over the years.

First thing I did was have the tires replaced which seemed to lessen the vibration at first but never really got rid of it. I've had another set of new tires and brand new rims put on the truck. Once again, at first this seemed to help but the vibration was still there slightly and after a couple of days right back to the same degree. Fully inflating or slightly over inflating the tires seems to less the vibes but I believe this has more to do with the stiffening of the sidewalls of the rear tires or to an even greater degree the inherent stiffness of brand new tires.

I've had my u joints replace, as well as my ball joints and upper control joints. Wheel bearings seem fine. As mentioned had the u joint in the 1pc driveshaft replaced. Tried indexing the driveshaft. Checked the rear end bearing and preload. Replaced all 4 shocks.

I've read somewhere that a bad transmission mount can cause this problem as well seems to be ok in my case. I'm going to have the drive shaft balance checked or I may just order a new higher quality drive shaft instead. I've seen posts that say the Ranger OEM driveshafts are junk and prone to bending even under normal operating conditions. My driveshaft does not appear to be bent after a visual inspection but the balance check will let me know for sure.

These 2 wheel drive Ranger driveshafts appear to have a harmonic balancer up front where they meet the transmission. The balancer is just a large metal ring attacked to the driveshaft with rubber. My truck is at 165k miles so I'm fairly sure that rubber is probably shot by now. Seems like most folks just remove this ring with little to no side effects but once again I may just buy whole new driveshaft and be done with it. I'll definitely be redoing the rear breaks as I don't believe I have ever touched them save for a adjustment last time I did the front breaks.

It'll take a few weeks or more now that winter is coming in hard but I'll definitely post back here what I find. I like Fords, especially their larger v8 vehicles but these ranger issues need a service bulletin or should have had a recall. I'm really disappointed in Ford's lighter vehicles especially those of the late 90's and early to mid 2000's.

 

Don't worry about it at all. Since these trucks are very vibration prone bringing this back up probably will help pass on the information to a new owner.

 

Hell, I'm chasing a vibration in my 2011 right now.........

 

I have heard that quality drums are hard to get for Rangers in general and that a drum being slightly out of true or unbalanced is a likely cause of vibration. Many previous comments have suggested swapping drums. I have often had vibration change or disappear after swapping drums

I also had a 1994 2wd that had a mild vibration that nothing seemed to fix; felt like it came from the rear of the truck, at 50-65. Tried alignment, brake jobs, etc etc. UNTIL I noticed that there was a locating pin/bolt in the carrier that lets you take the whole assembly apart, that was broken off, with the head put back in with red loctite...

I swapped with an equivalent rear end from another 94 2wd, with this intact, used my old brake parts and what not, no more vibration!!

I don't know what other years this applies to

 

New shocks, the vibration was half gone. Tires were the rest, drives like it should now.

 

Hello all... so I have an 01 XLT 4x4 that has just developed the vibe & shake on my passenger front only. I replaced the tie rod end and it went away for a night, but after a bit of driving, it cane back in the freeway only, after I hit 70+mph. Ive been skim reading through this thread, what was the final solution??? thanks in advance!