15 Oct 11 Possible Causes Why Your Truck Vibrates
Vibrations: They come, they go, or they shake you to death. Vibrations can come from many places on your truck, so we’ll try to pinpoint a few places to start looking for the solution to your shake.
1. Check for mud or clumps of dirt on the backside of your rims.
Answer: Describes itself – mud=weight – which throws the balance off.
2. Are your airbags riding at normal height?
Answer: Low ride height changes the driveline angles, usually flatting the angle, you can’t run a straight angle, you need an offset angle for pressure balance. Most airbags require 10 inches from axle to the frame, check with the manufacturer to ensure your truck is riding at the proper height.
3. Check for loose driveline yokes and u-joints.
Answer: Loose yokes come from worn joints hammering, which causes vibration, which can loosen the yoke nut, which can hammer out the yoke, which can cause the diff seal to leak. (Extreme case) Inspect your driveline and fix anything in question before the chain reaction begins.
4. Are there any suspension bushings missing or mushroomed out?
Answer: Suspension bushings throws the rear wheels off track which can make the outside of one front tire wear and the inside of the other tire wear on the steering axle and as they progress vibration and cupping form.
5. Check the front end for worn kingpin bushings, draglink, and tie-rod ends.
Answer: Like the rear components the front components also play a big part in tire wear that leads to tire vibration, kingpins throw the camber off, tie rods and drag link will take steering pressure away and let the wheels walk from side to side causing vibration and eventually a very unsafe vehicle.
6. Are the motor mounts loose or missing?
Answer: Without the motor and tranny being held down tight they can twist, turn, and bounce under torque load, and coasting.
7. Check the hanger bearings for signs of excessive play or missing devices.
Answer: Hanger bearings can get worn out from loose motor mounts as well, most of the time the rubber gets too loose for the holder before the bearing ever goes, another thing to check, is the driveshaft too long? It may be bottoming under compression and shock loading the hanger or the rear transmission nearing either way, it spells major trouble.
8. Are you running dayton wheels? Check them for excessive wobble.
Answer: Dayton wheels just plain suck… even if you get them fairly straight, 6,000 miles later they loosen up on you and your retighten if this happens too often replace your wheel clips.
9. Check your lug nuts for loose wheels or cracked rims.
Answer: Daytons aren’t the only wheels that loosen up and cause vibration, hub pilot, & stud pilot wheels do to. Many times this can come from new wheel studs that were not driven all the way in, but mostly from improper torque, that will do… type torque won’t do, most wheels need at least 450 ft/lbs. Guys will say well I had a 600 ft/lbs gun on it, but their air supply can’t back the gun up so only half the wheel got tight.
10. Look at the inside of your wheels, is there oil? Cracked hub is possible…
Answer: If you have a wheel that leaks and you installed two seals thinking something happened to the first one but you still have a leaky wheel after the second one, I would inspect the hub closely, I bet it is cracked and could fail driving down the road, also a brake drum that is cracked will lose its balance and vibrate, not to mention it will come apart and do some real damage.
11. Are your brake drums showing wear or missing balance weights?
Answer: Sometimes worn, hammered, cracked, unbalanced brake drums can cause your vibrations and/or tire wear that compounds the problem. On some applications, you can request a true balanced drum, and for other applications select a quality manufacturer when installing your replacement drums.
Thanks for reading, and we hope this helps you find your vibrations!
