Vibration at certain speeds?

[00V8]

I am having the weirdest vibration issues with my Explorer.

I lowered it and put 22" wheels on it at the same time. The wheels were used but I took them to a tire shop when I bought them and the shop said they were fine.

I drove it with the wheels and it being lowered and noticed a pretty serious vibration above 60mph to about 85mph.

I put the factory tires and wheels back on and noticed a SLIGHT vibration between 45-60.

At that point I figured it must be the new wheels and tires so I took them to another shop for a second opinion. They put them on the balancer while I watched, they were very slightly out of round but the technician assured me that he has seen much worse wheels that displayed no issues while driving. He balanced them and I left.

Immediately I noticed the vibration so i returned. He rebalanced them stating one of the weights didn't stick.

The vibration was less but still not fixed.

So I took them to a THIRD shop. A custom wheel shop. They looked them over, drove the truck and said they werent balanced on the correct type of machine so they rebalanced them again. Still no improvement. This shop also said it wasn't the wheels but said it could be the tires but they said it was more likely to be a problem with the suspension of the truck, mainly resulting from bad front shocks.

So I replaced the shocks and had the truck aligned, no other problems found with the front suspension.

I have fought with this problem for over a year and now it is time for new tires so I'm trying to decide if I need to buy new wheels also, or just tires, or how to fix the problem.

Since I still feel a vibration with the factory wheels it seems like a problem with the truck, could it be the lowering blocks in the rear changing drive line angle?

What else could cause these vibrations?

I was told if the problem was with the wheels I would feel a wobble at slow speeds too, is this true?

At this point I'm just lost.

 

[J_Train]

How much did you lower it? i had 3 inch blocks in the rear as well as the torsion key flipped and had no problem..

 

[00V8]

Only 2 inches so I guess I can rule that out..

 

[J_Train]

I do remember having a slight vibration when accelerating from a dead stop, I took the shock off the read axle that ran to the frame and that cured that vibration.

 

[Silvertune]

I had similar issues and it was the CV on the front driveshaft. I'm not sure how your 00 compares to mine but on mine the CV joint got enough play in it that the driveshaft would vibrate at highway speeds.

They're easy to check, just slide under there and try to shake them.

 

[J_Train]

Ah yes, check that out I didn't even think to look under your screen name to see if your truck was awd or not.

 

[00V8]

I am going to jack it up tomorrow and put the other wheels back on and I will check the CVs and the driveshaft for play.

Any other ideas?

If I had a bent wheel would I feel a wobble at slow speeds too?

I hate to buy new tires and it end up being bent wheels.