nimblemotors
Member
- Joined
- July 17, 2015
- Messages
- 41
- Reaction score
- 3
- Year, Model & Trim Level
- 1997 Explorer 5.0
I've got a thumping coming from my 1998 Explorer with 5.0 AWD. It seems like it is coming from the front.
I have spent hours searching and reading mostly explorerforum posts, but others too. The simple case would be a tire was bad,
so I swapped tires around, front to back, side to side, and it had no effect, still seemed to come from front.
I actually thought it was the front driveshaft cv joint as many have that problem, ordered a rebuild kit, and removed it, but it looked in great shape.
Drove it without the front shaft, and it was just the same.
So I put it up on my lift and ran it to see if I can find the issue, and unfortunately it doesn't show up much at all when on the lift.
However because the front diff is open (not locked like rear), I could stop one wheel from spinning and see if that made a difference,
and it seemed that when the right front was spinning, I could get a little bit of thump noise, none at all when drivers side was spinning.
I checked the half shafts and the wheel bearings and no apparent wear issue. The pass side seemed a little lose, so I replace it...
and had no effect at all, same issue.
There is perhaps one additional clue is that it makes the worst thumping at 30mph, is muted around 40-45, and at 60mph is back to being real bad,
quieter at 70mph, I figured at 80 might be better, but hard to get there on our freeways, mostly I have to go 60 which is terrible, and I don't drive it on freeway for the last few months while I find time to fix it. I found some time and still haven't fixed it. Most frustrating!
Any tips given the clues? I might make a video and post it with the noise if that would help.
I have spent hours searching and reading mostly explorerforum posts, but others too. The simple case would be a tire was bad,
so I swapped tires around, front to back, side to side, and it had no effect, still seemed to come from front.
I actually thought it was the front driveshaft cv joint as many have that problem, ordered a rebuild kit, and removed it, but it looked in great shape.
Drove it without the front shaft, and it was just the same.
So I put it up on my lift and ran it to see if I can find the issue, and unfortunately it doesn't show up much at all when on the lift.
However because the front diff is open (not locked like rear), I could stop one wheel from spinning and see if that made a difference,
and it seemed that when the right front was spinning, I could get a little bit of thump noise, none at all when drivers side was spinning.
I checked the half shafts and the wheel bearings and no apparent wear issue. The pass side seemed a little lose, so I replace it...
and had no effect at all, same issue.
There is perhaps one additional clue is that it makes the worst thumping at 30mph, is muted around 40-45, and at 60mph is back to being real bad,
quieter at 70mph, I figured at 80 might be better, but hard to get there on our freeways, mostly I have to go 60 which is terrible, and I don't drive it on freeway for the last few months while I find time to fix it. I found some time and still haven't fixed it. Most frustrating!
Any tips given the clues? I might make a video and post it with the noise if that would help.