I have a vibration in my truck. It causes the seats to shake.

Today I checked the front passanger hub assembly... It does not have any movement up,down, left or right. It rotates freely. Front driverside is new with 5k miles on it.

Rear drive shaft universals are new greaseable type with 10-15k miles on them. Front drive shaft universal is original, but I am going to replace this today, it does not seem bound or gritty at all, but its worth a shot.

Truck just had an alignment. No change in vibration.
Truck just got new tires, they were balanced well. There is weight on the inside and outside of the rim.

Tires did not change this vibration/shaking.
There does not seem to be any wheel play at all, everything looks and feels tight.

Took off wheels, and re torqued down. no change found.
Thought it could be from worn shocks, truck has new shocks all around.

Please give ideas to look for. The vibration/shaking occurs at 60-70 mph and seems to give up at 72+mph. I live where its all interstate driving and this is just driving me crazy. The shake is bad enough that if I have a can of soda in the cup holder when I open it it will explode with foam all over.

I notice there is a slight vibration in the steering wheel when this shaking occurs, but it is not much at all. Steering wheel has no shake, just vibration. The vibration/shaking feeling goes though passanger seat, center console, and drivers back, can be felt in drivers floor as well.


I know I cannot be the only Ranger out there that has this issue, I have read hundreds of posts about this, but there have been no conclusions.

This shaking had begun around 40-45k miles. I am at 65,580 now.

 

Id have to say driveshaft, since that about the only thing you havent replaced. I would say the tires, but if you just got a new set, I dont think two sets would do the same thing. Driveshaft may need rebalancing.

 

mine did this. but after ruling everything out, it lead me to believe it was my old tires.

i still get a little shake, but im the only one who notices it when i have people in the truck with me. i just assume its hard for normal shops to balance a 33" tire. and thats what my shake now is from. who knows.

 

yup replace the front driveshaft and see if that helps.

 

I would say it's the driveshaft u joints.

 

Update: I changed the front axle shaft universal joint. No improvement at all.

Would rotating and remounting the driveshaft before getting it balanced be of any help? Or should I just wait until it is balanced? I don't really want to waste my time, I seem to have done enough of that making the truck new with all these damn parts.

 

I also noticed that when the truck is in park and if I rock the steering wheel left to right slightly, there is a click click click like endplay in the inner tie rod is this normal or is this problemmatic?

 

right there with you. following this tread. hope you get it figured out so i can fix mine as well.

 

Something like this should be stickied, I've noticed that there must be about 200 people with rangers, and explorers with this same exact problem... with no resolutions.... We both have 05's its probably some 05 shake that will develop in 50% of them haha.

 

I just figure it's the driveshaft. Does yours have the balancing ring on the front? I've heard stories of those coming lose.

 

I don't have any kind of balancing ring that I have noticed. I have one of those cv boot clamp locking metal straps for the slip yoke boot. There is a few weights on the driveshaft. It is an aluminum spicer drive shaft if I am correct. The only problem I have noticed is that there is overspray from the orignal undercoating on the drive shaft in spots. I am probably going to checmically disolve this off with engine cleaner tomorrow early morning. I am thinking of pulling the drive shaft tomorrow at like 5am cleaning it, packing it up in the other truck and bringing to down to a place that is suppose to be great at driveshaft balancing, it is only 45-55 dollars to be done.

 

So early this morning I dropped off my rear driveshaft for it to be spun at a shop. I dropped it off at a place called Fleet Pride. They do work on driveshafts, universals, differentals, and transmissions. It was highly recommended to be by a bunch of local people. I will have to just wait and see what the result is. They said they will not really be able to balance it since they do not have the equiptment to balance an aluminum driveshaft. I hope this helps at least. I also picked up a dial indicator to check all rims for out of round, as well as the rotors, and pinion flanges on the truck. I shall keep you posted. If anyone has any ideas of things to check please post accordingly.

I am also contemplating if the balancing of the driveshaft is inconclusive, that maybe it is time for me to have my frame checked for damage. This does not seem overly insane does it?

 

As far as the driveshaft goes I have had bad luck with fleet style places. I have had them make me a driveshaft and their is no where near the accuracy needed for my truck. I had many vibration problems with it stemming from their inability to high speed balance and incorrect weld angles on the flanges. I ended up finding a more high performance drive shaft shop the does race care type applications, which helped quite a bit.

A couple other things could be pinion angle, but that's rare since your not lifted. Also if you exceed the max speed of the driveshaft it will cause it to bend out of round. You wouldn't be able to see it but it would be enough to feel.

Lastly it sounds like you have the driveshaft with the built in slip yoke, not a slip yoke on the end of the shaft like a 2wd, which can wear and cause problems in the tailshaft bushing.

Make sure all bolts are tight attaching the driveshaft and try rotating it to different positions to see if it changes the speed that the vibration occurs at.

Good Luck.

 

Update: I just got the driveshaft back, it was spun actually at high speed. I suppose this fleet pride does high speed balancing, they seem to work on alot of tractor trailers, since there is a huge freight company population here.

The driveshaft passed all tests.

I don't believe I need to worry about exceeding the max speed of the driveshaft, I would understand this if I was trying to drive at say 100+mph... I'm just asking to go highway speed. But good information and definitally useful in alot of applications. I am going to try other tests today.

 

The only thing that I have noticed now in addition. I pulled off the front wheels again and inspected the front brakes closely. It seems that the rotor is warped about .002-.004" But I do not really get a pulsing or shaking in the front when brakes are applied. Also the passanger side inside brake pad seems to be worn at somewhat of an angle. Any idea what would cause this?

 

Bent spindle?

 

Spindle as in the front? I am a 4x4. I have hubs, and CV shafts I dont believe I have spindles.

Today, inspecting the brakes I found that the passanger side pads were wearing strange, and one actually was siezed in the slide area.

To rule out the brakes I did on both sides, brand new rotors, calipers, caliper mounting brackets, hardware, new ceramic pads... basically everything from the brake lines out.

I am going to test drive it again later on flatter roads. It seems as if some of the shaking has gone away. I am suspicious that the warped rotor was touching the siezed pad sending a shimmying feeling though the truck. I will test drive it once the rotors cool down, as I had to seat those ceramic pads.

If this does not work, I am going to swap the tires from back to front, to see if it changes anything. Maybe I have a bent rim. I am also thinking I may have a out of balance/out of round brake drum in the rear causing this shaking, if the tire swapping does not reviel anything.

Ranger05, have you gotten anywhere on any leads to your shaking?

 

I have the same problems. . . . .

 

Dangelj316, please in depth discribe your problem. As well as the measures that you have taken to resolve the issue.

 

i've replaced my front u-joints greased my front drive shaft and no luck. i also check for play in my yokes, they seem fine. did that last night and didn't have time to do the rear tonight due to us get 15inches of snow last night. busy day in the plow truck:(

 

the spindle would be what the hub bolts to and the cv shaft passes threw

 

wouldn't the alignment shop notice that?

 

I just test drive my truck again. Now my truck seems to shake at 60+ up to the 80 mark. I did not go over the 80 mark. Now the shaking does not dissapate at all. Maybe I am on to something, i've made her mad XD. I now have slight shaking and heavier vibration than before in the steering wheel.

... this really has me stumped.

 

have you messed with the rearend lately?

 

I had replaced the wheel seals on left and right side, and a new pinion seal. This shaking was prior to this work. The rear end has no noises coming from it, and the pinion flange has no play to it. The bearing preload was set to 10-12 inch pounds on the break away, and has a rotational bearing preload of between 7-9 inch pounds. The differental was filled with 75-140 fully synthetic valvoline gear lube and 1 bottle of XG-3 Motorcraft friction modifier, as per instructions. Axle Shafts were removed and rust near wheel seals were polished away using red rouge, and green rouge and a buffing wheel. No leaks are present. Differental spider gears were placed in original locations, C clips were placed in original locations, no parts were mixed up.

The problem feels as if the truck has very imbalanced tires on it. But they are new tires, they were balanced, and there was an alignment done as well. The truck has orignal stock rims, and original stock lug nuts.