Hot Hubs and Rattle

[Romer]

I put on a pair of Edelbrock IAS shocks on my '92 XLT and noticed a rattle. Wasn't sure if it was the shock or something else. The compression of the shock was stiff and matched on all four shocks. Of course before I bought the shocks, every site I went to raved about them. Afterward, I come across all the sites bashing them. So, I put the shock on and there is a rattle in the front passenger side. At highway speed it goes away. But steet cruising it drives me nuts on the smallest imperfections on the road. I'm in my Explorer a majority of the day due to my job so I'm going crazy.
My lower ball joints have a little play, but not a lot. My front passenger side hub gets hotter than the driver's side. And, when turning the front axle, there is an odd sound when I rotate it — almost like a bearing is blown, but they were just repacked about 500 miles ago.
And the big one, I locked the hubs and engaged the four-wheel drive and when making a u-turn, it felt like the steering buckled. What's up with that?
So, any ideas? Is the shock crap and causing some jolting that will make the hub hot? Is something about to blow up? Is the transfer case blown?
I got a lot of question for my first post.
Any help is greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Romer

 

[DeRocha]

Shock choice can be a very subjective much like choosing a muffler system. For this reason I went with the Rancho 9000x adjustable shocks. They have a 9 position dial to vary the ride from soft to firm. Btw the standard Rancho 5000s (non adjustable shocks) equal about 5 on the dial setting. Anyway ill performing shocks will not affect your hubs in any way..They only dampen impacts..

When you engaged 4x4 where you on dry pavement? If so the torque wind up caused by having a true 4x4 (power going 50/50 front and rear) will be huge causing the tires to chatter and the drivetrain to groan as you make sharp turns. This is why 4x4 is only recommended off-road or on wet roads (which will allow the tires to spin alleviating this extra torque). AWD vehicles on the other hand contain a center differential (or viscous coupling) etc to vary the amount of power front and rear. These vehicles are best suited for on-road driving.

As for the hub(s) getting hot: When the bearings were repacked how much final torque did you apply to the bearing nut?