Thought my vibration was in my engine, wrong.

What I have has me stumped , hope someone else can lead me on the right path.

The truck has a terrible vibration in all gears, but not when I let off of the throttle, feels like the engine is missing, but is not as verified by AE. The weird, and somehow good, cause I can drive it, is the vibration goes away when I switch it to 4WD. All u joints, axle bolts, and front end seem tight. I don't beleive it's in the tires, as it goes away in 4x4.

If anyone has had a similar problem, I sure would like to hear the solution.

 

Is it a high or low frequency vibration?
Does it change with speed?
Do you have manual locking hubs that have been locked? Or are your automatic hubs in the locked position?

My first guess is you have your hubs locked and your front driveshaft is experiencing torsional vibrations.

 

I can't hear the vibration, just feel it in the steering wheel and see it in the cup holder, its that bad.

Auto hubs are set on auto, not locked in full time.

Yes, it does get worse as I go faster.

Upon further driving, it is still there in 4x4, just not nearly as prominent.

I had front wheels off, and didn't feel and movement that should not have been there in the front end.

I wonder if this could be in the transfer case?
Going to check transfer fluid and smell this afternoon.

 

I get vibration in the front if I drive much past the scheduled rotation of the tires (I have to do it every oil change). Rotating the tires puts the vibration in the rear... but it's subdued to a tolerable level. A good burnout would likely clear the vibration... but that's akin to lighting a butt with a burning bill.

Make sure your hubs aren't "stuck on stupid": When the hubs are in auto and the truck is sitting, grab the front drive line and spin it. It spins? move on to the next thing.

Shake and roll your rear driveline. Carrier bearing solid within the rubber cushion (the rubber will give a little)? Normal.

You have the same power I do, and WOT runs wrap the rear axle. Just one of these wreaks havoc on your rear driveline. I had a bent driveline and very unhappy U-joints... this from the odd angle of the differential as well as the pumpkin pushing against the power pole under the truck. You may need to visit a driveline guy, as well as do some suspension-guy work.



I'll say this: Adding ladder bars to stock-height Stinky made him a whole new truck. Rear-end "clunk" was gone, shifts got uber-smooth, and the ride felt different. My wife and I liked the difference. Yes... even my wife noticed it, and liked it.

 

The needle bearings in the front hubs do not rotate when the hubs are locked. If they are worn, the play can cause vibration.

 

x2 on that. Been plagued with front end vibration for some time now. Found a front tire separating and that quieted things down for a while. Been battling a bad vibration for about 5 months and then the right front axle started leaking oil (from the tube/dust seal). When I go into 4x4 and the front axle drives the vibration wasn't as bad (plus I was at slow speeds on a bumpy road). Cycled the hubs manually a few times and the right front axle would not unlock (always turned with the wheel). Finally got all the parts together for the work (ball joint and inner axle seal replacement). Took me about 15 minutes to get the passenger autolock hub off to find that some of the needles from the hub bearing were jammed between the axle and hub. 30 more minutes later with a monster 2-jaw puller and I had the hub off to find that the needle bearing had disintegrated. The needles had jammed everything around it and locked the axle to the hub. 3 ball joints were bad and my u-joints had 247K on them and were pretty much done too. I'm pretty sure that my passenger side axle has been spinning for about 1/2 a year with a bad needle bearing which caused my vibration. Now that I've replaced everything, I don't feel a vibration now until about 75mph (before the truck felt like it was going to shake apart at anything above 55mph). The vibration now is only slight and I atrribute that to the fact I'm down to the last 25% of my mud tires (I love these tires and used them for the last 4 years but it's an effort to keep these balanced - even then they start to vibrate at freeway speeds). Even right after they're balanced, the truck starts to vibrate around 65-70mph depending on the type of asphalt/cement I'm riding on.

I forgot to mention that before I tore the front end apart, the truck would vibrate/shake really bad under moderate to heavy braking. Now it brakes normally.

Obviously this is a very unique circumstance. Just don't rule anything out. I would start by trying to rotate your front axles in 2wd to see if they are spinning free or not. When you pick up speed they might rotate a little, but the axle should spin freely by hand when you do this test. The autolock hub not disengaging has been known to happen, especially if you don't cycle it manually occassionally.

Sorry for the novel. I hope some of this helps.