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Vibration in front passenger wheel

kazsim70

Full Member
Joined
Mar 29, 2005
Messages
28
Location
Liberty Lake, WA
Hi all, I have a vibration in my front wheel and steering column, I just put a new set of 185/55/20 goodyear triple thread tires on, The vibration started after that. It vibrates some times and not all the times, sometimes really bad when braking. No different conditions cause it. Yesterday I got home and checked the wheels, 3 were warm and the front passenger was hot. Any suggestions? Please let me know.

Thanks
 
i would jack up the truck and make sure the tires were put on securely.... best of luck to you and hope you figure it out....
 
I'd also check that size :)

Have them rebalanced.
 
did you just change to 20" rims? if so, make sure they took off those little clips that hold the rotors on, they can cause the rim to not seat properly
 
Maybe check wheel bearing......jack it up and see if you have any play in the wheel........ :wave:
 
I appreciate all your responses, the wheel tire is actually 285 not 185. It is at the dealership right now, he thinks its the brake? I will keep you posted.
 
I'm curious how this panned out.

Last weekend I just drove my 05 Av from Liberty Lake (funny we're from the same little town) to Redding, CA. fully loaded & towing a 2500 lb ATV trailer. Over 1500 miles & we didn't have any problems along the way. About 40 miles of the trip was on dirt roads at under 25 mph, not bad roads, but a little more bumpy than pavement.

Two days later I have an odd vibration. It starts at about 40 mph & gets slightly worse the faster I go. I can feel it in the steering wheel a bit. And it seems to get better if I speed up & then slow down a bit (could be in my head).

I am looking things over today. I ran over each tire, nothing. All my weights are on the inside of the rims. The front right tire has no weight at all, and only a very slight resemblance of there ever being a weight on it.
I looked at the drive shafts, u-joints look good, no dings or scrapes. A very slight amount of movement when I spin either drive shaft.

Any other bright ideas as to what I should be looking for? I feel the vibration in the steering wheel, but I also feel it all over the whole truck too. I'll get the tires re-balanced ASAP & hope thats the problem. But I'm not real sure of it.
 
I just got 22s and am having the same problem.  I have had the wheels rebalanced twice after the initial mounting with no luck. 

Also getting a bad smell from the right rear....think the brake may be rubbing.

Keep us posted!
 
It was the piston in the brake caliper. It got stuck. The service writer said that in his 30 years this is only the 5th one he has seen. They had to replace the whole caliper and turn the rotor. I got it back and no more vibrations.

What gave it away was the additional heat on the hub and a burning smell.

Thanks all for the replys.
 
Hmmmmm.... piston in the brake is dirty, gets plugged up & doesn't move, but holds one pad in tight on the rotor. That causes a vibration?????

Good catch. I had mine at Les Schwab today & they balanced the tires. No change in the vibration. Makes me wonder if I picked up some dirt on last weekend's trip to Shasta.... stuck in the brake piston????

So what shop figured out the problem, kazsim70?
 
This afternoon I took all my wheels off & looked over the brake calipers on each. No frozen pistons. But I found a lot of dirt & sand in the steering, brakes & suspension from our trip last week. So I cleaned everything up & put it all back together. I still have a little bit of the vibration. Instead of it coming at 40 mph though, it shows up at like 60 mph & is much less pronounced.

I recieved an email from someone I inquired with on the problem. He thinks he's narrowed it down to the wheel bearings. So I wonder if maybe all the dirt & sand may have worked it?s way into one of the wheels bearings. Guess I may be spending some time repacking them soon.
 
Frontwheel bearing is a hub design and changed as such. No repacking possible  :D
 
Thanks Cadboy. Saw your post in another thread on this topic & decided to go another direction to find my problem. Unfortunately I have been talking to a bunch of hillbillies though. Check this out for luck.....

I decide to take it to the dealer. They quickly diagnose the problem as a u-joint problem, the rear one by the rear diff. The "service adviser" (ain't that a joke) tells me they found the rear drive shaft & u-joint are not a factory units (on a 3 yr old truck with 65k miles), and that the found a small sliver of metal sticking out of the u-joint. Charge me $45 for the diagnostic. And advise me to get a u-joint at Driveline, Inc. in Post Falls.

So I go to Drive line Inc. and the guy tells me it IS a factory driveline & u-joint. Of course the Three Rivers factory decal might have been the dead giveaway. He tells me he has the u-joint & their like $18. I pull the debit card & he tells he doesn't take plastic. WTF??? Is this 1971 or what?!

So I go to the nearby Chevron gas station. Their ATM is dead. And they won't do anything out of their till. I tell the towelhead working the till he's seen the last time I buy gas there.

So I go further up the road & finally find another ATM, get the cash & look across the street & there is a Napa. So screw it, I'll just get it at Napa & go back to work for now.

Later I get home & pull the drive line out. Takes me about 1.5 hrs. Would have taken less if I'd read the thing about melting the snakes out of the u-joint. I clean things up & go to install the new u-joint. Guess what..... Napa gave me the wrong one.

So tomorrow I'm going to have a "conversation" with the service adviser at the Chevy dealer, then another "conversation" with the knucklehead at Napa. Maybe I'll get it all back together tomorrow. And then maybe my vibration problem will be done with.

 
Yeah..You need to snake out the teflon with a tourch. After I did that it still took the press to pop it loose. After 103K they did not want to come out. Hopefully thats all it is like it was on mine  :love:
 
It's a new day & my luck was doing a lot better. Got the right u-joint installed last night. Their a piece of cake to get installed. And the problem is solved!

Another guy at Napa came thru for me. They had to order a heavy duty u-joint from their regional distribution center in Spokane. And then they delivered it to my office later that afternoon.

So the Chevy service adviser made a comment that might help someone in the future. He said the vibration can be pinned down easier by noticing how fast or tight it's vibrating. If it's a slow vibration, then it should be something that is larger in diameter, or doesn't spin very fast, like a tire. If it's a faster vibration, then it's probably something that is smaller & spins faster, like a drive line. But brakes are not a lot bigger than a drive line so it would be interesting to see the difference. I would think that you could hear a brake dragging but maybe you'd have to get the wheels off the ground to do it.

Anyway, got it pinned down. Bad u-joint by the rear diff. DONE!


 
Airjunky,

Glad to hear you got it fixed. I like those chairs you have, I think I might have seen you on the lake last year?
 
Yea, probably us.... there aren't many foil riders around. Hoping to be out on Liberty on Sunday. Stop by & say hello.
Gotta put the Av to work launching the boat.
 
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