98 horrific shaking

[margaretia]

My 98 started shaking on the driver side violently out of the blue and it does it at any speed over 15. I've changed it the hub assemblies on both sides and nothing. The ball joints on visual inspection look relatively new as well the CV boot.

It's getting cold outside (no garage) and I need to get this fixed ASAP and for as cheap as possible. Any ideas?

 

[974X4BLACKSPORT]

It is possible a wheel weight fell off. Also check and make sure the cv joint is still tight.

 

[margaretia]

So sounding like a girl... How do I check if the CV joint is tight? I did the hub assemblies by watching a YouTube video.

 

[Turdle]

Check the tie rods by having someone steer the truck back and forth slightly, with engine running , in park and park brake set. Another person looks at the tie rods for movement at the joints before the knuckle actually moves. If the joint is bad, it will look like a loose tooth.

Also, have you tried re balancing the offending wheel? This is speculation but an out of round or tire which is imbalanced will cause this issue. Might also be a separated tire. The balance machine will tell. 10-20 bux well spent I think.

 

[Mbrooks420]

Kudos on tackling his based on watching videos. That’s a fairly large undertaking. Are you sure you got the hub nut tight enough? It goes on TIGHT. Did you turn the wheels while the motor was off? Might be trapped air.

 

[J_C]

I know you wrote above 15 MPH but does the shaking increase in frequency with vehicle speed?

You can rule out the tire wear/problems or wheel balancing by rotating your tires (front to rear) to see if the shaking follows the tire.

Generally when a CV starts going bad it'll start making a clicking sound when turning. When replacing the hubs, did you wait until the vehicle was lowered, putting weight on the wheels, to do final torque on the axle nut (you should have) ?

 

[JAMMANICA]

"Violently" and "out of the blue" shaking has only both happened to me in two situations. One the lug nuts had worked loose and it destroyed the rim pretty much, needed replaced.

Second was freaky, was a bead problem. tire went inside the bead on one side (have never seen it before, not since) and shook horribly. They took it off the rim, re sealed it and it worked great.

Both were instant and way bad. So going with the wheel theory (even if weights fell off this applies) , put the fronts on the back and the backs on the front. During the swap if you don't see anything obvious take it for a short 16MPH drive so you don't get hurt and see if it is front or rear shaking.