front end shake

[Fatal_Shock]

okay. well my 96 xlt has been lowered via blocks/leafsprings in the rear and torsion bars in the front. I have the explorer express camber kit which brought it close but not perfect. My alignment is pefect (all but camber which is even on both sides) but yet at around 45 my hand starts to vibrate on the steering wheel , 50mph it gets worse, 55 it's pretty crazy and @ 60 it's down right aweful. the steering wheel will shimmy back and forth about a quarter inch in each direction making the front end wobble like CRAZY!!! I don't know why!!!!!!! Please don't tell me this is something I just have to live with...Is it my ball joints? is it my bushings? I'm on a tight budget right now so whatever the problem is I would like to pinpoint it and not torture my wallet with a horrible trial and error type scenario...know what I mean??? thats my biggest problem right now. plus i was wondering what would be envolved with ripping out all my 4wd crap. I never use it and since it's lowered...well I wanna go lower but the way I see it I need to get rid of those axles in the front. What I plan on doing is mounting my air suspension brakets to the control arm, thus eliminating my torsion bars all together....not sure if this is commonly how air sus. would be done on an explorer, but looks right to me...help me out guys..

 

[BuffaloXplorer]

I had horrible vibration recently and traced it back to unbalanced tires. Got'em balanced and now it's smoothe as ever @ 80mph.

Also, I had a terrible vibration at highway speeds a while back and it turned out to be the front driveshaft. Replaced it and it went back to smoothness...You could first try removing the driveshaft to see if that helps.


As far as the lowering via bags, check out these threads:

Before
http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=131980

After:
http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=132920

 

[Ford_Racing_Guy]

like above start with simple things like the tires.


get them balanced and rotated to see if that solves anything

 

[burgo]

I also experienced a dreadful shake as well. It ended up being my tie rod ends. May want to have those looked at. Good luck

 

[Stig]

Sometimes moving the sterring with the vehicle off gets air in the powersterring unit and it will do that, but it usually works itself out.