I have been having a vibration coming from my left front for the past few weeks. It isnt noticable under 40 mph, but gets worse the faster you go. it varies from a slight vibration all the way to shaking the steering wheel. its even worse when im towing. i pulled the wheel off and the rotor was cracked. put a new one on hoping that would fix it. no difference. decided to go back in and change the wheel bearings and races. didnt help any. had the tires balanced. twice. even took them off the rim and remounted them. didnt help. had it aligned, camber adjusted, and still didnt help. ball joints, tie rod ends, etc are all good. the front end guy said he couldnt figure out why it was vibrating. anyone have any ideas? could the vibration be coming from the rear end but feel like its in the front end?

on a side note, i havent degreased my engine yet, but i did get a chance to take a look at it today. theres a ton of oil in the valley. the entire valley is covered, but the majority of it is pooled up close to the fuel filter. i can see where its draining out the end of the valley, but i couldnt see where it was coming from. i bought a few cans of degreaser and should be able to clean it up some this weekend.

 

My Dad had a vibe like that in his '00 SD..could not track it down....after alot of unneeded spending on parts and a week of working on it........it ended up being a separated brake pad...replaced the pads and no more vibe.

 

you know, now that you mention it, the brake pad was starting to seperate on that side. it was just a shim looking piece on the back side of the pad, so i slid it back in place and figured the caliper would hold it in place. ive got a set of pads in the garage. ill change them tomorrow and see if that helps any.

 

ok, its not the brakes. driveshaft and axleshaft u joints all looked good too.

 

Have you rotated the tires? Might be a bad belt in the tire. Swap it around and see if the vibe follows.

 

yeah, and it still stays in the same place. i may swap the tires between my two trucks and see if that helps any. to eliminate the possibility of having multiple bad tires.

 

Have you had to lock your breaks up recently if so you may have flat spotted a tire I have had this happen to me before

 

i havent. but thats kind of what it feels like. i hauled a car to dayton ohio last weekend and the whole way up there it a slight vibration, but nothing too bad. you could tell it was there, but you could run 70 mph no problem. the same vibration it had with no trailer on it. every now and then it would go from a small vibration to feeling like the front wheel was wobbling. about halfway back home it got really bad. it felt like someone was jumping on my rear bumper and making the rear end bounce up and down as i was driving. not too much later a tire blew out on my trailer. i thought that could have been the problem, but i changed the tire and it continued to drive like that. ive checked all 4 tires and wheel bearings on the trailer and they are all good.

so basically, with no trailer, i have a slight vibration and some left front wheel wobble every now and then. with the trailer, its like someone is jumping on the rear bumper the entire trip, at any speed. i was going to take the tires off my super duty and put on to see if that helped. but the super duty 8 lug wont fit the obs 8 lug.....so cant do that.

 

Did you check the wheel bearings?
How old are the shocks?

 

Is your truck a 4x4 if so lock your hubs and see if it makes a difference could be a bad hub just a thought.

 

If you replaced a rotor, i would have hoped you changed pads.
I can see it causing a vibration.
But a lot of front end feeling vibrations are from the rear of the truck.

 

yeah, i checked all the wheel bearings, front and rear. ive only had the truck for about 6 months, so i cant say for sure, but the shocks look to be original.

 

ill check that today. all of my driving in 4 wheel drive with it has been at about 5-10 mph , so i wouldnt feel a vibration at that speed. i pulled both hubs and cleaned them and they seemed to work fine.

 

well, the pads still had about 75% pad left on them, so i had left them on there at first. i replaced them yesterday though.

 

Well, using old pads on a new disk will just eat up the disk unevenly and reduce life on the rotor alltogether. =)