Shaking at high speeds!!!HELP!

[chapp2009]

0-55 the steering is kinda sloppy, I have a hard time sometimes keeping on the road specialy on a windy day. when I reach 65 + the truck starts vibrating quite heavily and steering issues increase! what going on please help!

 

[vq5speed]

I'd check your wheel balance first.

 

[Wolfie_85]

I've had off-balance tires shake and vibrate a couple cars I've owned. Fixed that and they were fine. These do have some sloppy steering, but is it a new or worsened condition? If so, check your ball joints and wheel bearings. Jack your truck up in the front and grab the tire at 12 and 6 o'clock, try to wobble it like that. Do this to both front wheels. If it feels loose, it's time for ball joints, and if it hasn't been done, might as well do the bearings, too. The bearings may not cause steering slop, but if you end up doing the ball joints, it's just a good time to take care of them. Especially if they're getting noisy.

 

[MUDDYTOES]

I had an issue with vibrations at around 55+ whenever I'd left off the gas pedal. Balanced wheels, redid alignment, replaced u-bolts and still vibrating like heck. Ended up being that the drive shaft needed a re-lube (right under the rubber boot near the front end) and no more vibrations.

Couldn't hurt to check that too....

 

[Bruces expo]

I would recommend checking your steering shaft under the hood , it has a bolt going through it , I couldn't find what was causing mine to have so much slop at the wheel when parked , turned out that bolt was not tight enough to keep the two parts from moving , Also when you shake your front end down - term in the auto repair industry - , Also have an extra set of eyes and hands looking and feeling your front end parts , steering knuckle , tie rod ends center link etc , could tell you a lot more by feel than by sight . Good luck on the search , sometimes its just nice to have 2 sets of eyes and hands on something while diagnosing ! .

Edit : , Also shake the tire side to side At 3-9 to check the tie rods and other steering components .

 

[tinkering]

I would recommend checking your steering shaft under the hood , it has a bolt going through it , I couldn't find what was causing mine to have so much slop at the wheel when parked , turned out that bolt was not tight enough to keep the two parts from moving , Also when you shake your front end down - term in the auto repair industry - , Also have an extra set of eyes and hands looking and feeling your front end parts , steering knuckle , tie rod ends center link etc , could tell you a lot more by feel than by sight . Good luck on the search , sometimes its just nice to have 2 sets of eyes and hands on something while diagnosing ! .

Edit : , Also shake the tire side to side At 3-9 to check the tie rods and other steering components .

To check the balls joints sometimes you have to 'unload' the lower control arm, and stuff like that. What is the dope on the Explorer check? Is there something special to check the control arm bushings?

 

[chrisofdogs]

If none of that works, you might try tightening up your steering gear box. It took the shake out of my '91 totally. Kind of a pain, there's just no really good way to get both hands on it, but right on top of the gear box, there is a screw, with a nut around it. Hold the screw still, and loosen the nut enough to turn the screw in some, then lock the nut back down and try it. don't just crank it down tight, your steering won't straighten itself back out if you do! just go a turn- a turn and a half at a time, until you get it where you like it. hope this helps, I've seen just about every front end fix there is, suggested for this problem, all the way up to replacing the whole front end, this is easy, and best of all, it's free!

 

[natenkiki2004]

Vibrations are from parts that rotate at speed. Tires, wheels, axles. Make sure your front suspension system is good for safety, ball joints, tie rods, drag link. If all that is good, rotate the front tires to the back and see if the vibration changes or goes away.

The sloppiness in steering can be any number of parts. A lot of us have slop in the gearbox that can be tightened up by adjusting the screw. I've tightened mine I think about 1/4 turn in total and while it's not fully fixed, I'm happy with it and don't want to crank it further. But this should be a last ditch effort. Check everything else. Have a buddy sit in the drivers seat and turn the wheel left and right while you look underneath and see what parts move and what parts don't. If everything is moving solidly with no slop, tighten up the steering box.

 

[FR-425]

Thread is 1.5 years old....

 

[natenkiki2004]

Thread is 1.5 years old....

To be fair, OP never replied or updated so it's still an open issue as far as we know

 

[Centaurious]

Best advice I received for tires/wheels that still shook after 3 tries was to find out where the Highway Patrol had there tires mounted and balanced. Wound up having them balanced on the truck, that fixed it.