First off, a little background.

About 4 weeks ago, had a bad vibration. Went to do the Passenger side bearings and found a broken stud and only two lug nuts tight.
Replaced all the studs and nuts...didn't have too bad of a vibration left and didn't worsen as it went. You can see where the studs left thread impressions in the alloy of the wheel holes and where the lugnuts wore the footprint of themselves.
About a two weeks ago, I got a brand new set of Michelin's.
Last week, vibration got worse again. Checked the studs on the offending side, all good. Checked the studs on other side, fine. Something of note, they swapped my Pass. rear wheel with the driver's side when putting the tires back on.... This original wheel was replaced by the dealer due to a wreck where someone hit me on that side. I am thinking cheap Asian replacement vice OEM, thinking of contacting the insurance company about this even though it was over 4 years ago (any experience or advice on this).
Went back to the tire place and had them re-balanced. Some improvement.
Last Sunday, drove about 120 mi round trip. Fairly smooth starting off. Got rough. Got home and while scratching my head wondering what the hey... The next morning, before I had to drive to the airport for a flight. I decided to shake the rear wheels.
Grabbed the pass. rear and shook the heck out of it. Solid as a rock.
Grabbed the driver's side and repeat....But slight knock...knock...knock when the body was shaking. Thought the bearings may have gotten toasted. I just changed them this spring.
Pulled the floating axle and checked the outer bearing. No scars, signs of wear or gauling, plenty of oil. Put it back on and brought up to torque specs and 7 clicks back. Put it all back together and shook again....less than before, but same result. I'm not driving this to the airport.

Fast forward to when I got back from my trip. Ordered bearings and new seal, they came in while I was gone. I pulled the hub cleaning everything I can think of, removed some rust and other oxide build-up from the hub, which I though may be contributing to the problem. Inspected the bearings and races.....like brand new (used national bearings when replaced before).
What now? Cleaned regreased and left the bearings in and reinstalled according to spec, inspected spindle, hub and spindle nut, no problems. No clank clank when shook. When for the same 120 mi trip, and again repeated results. Started off good (slight noise no vibration) and on the return, got worse. Shake test fails once home (not a bad as before).
So now I am left with three suspects in order of likelihood:
1) bad wheel
2) bad spindle nut
3) bad tire

My logic tells me to replace the wheel and spindle nut for good measure.
What other ideas do you guys have? How is my plan?

 

I had same issues, before and after doing wheel bearings. I think the 7 clicks back is no bueno. I ended up tourqing spindle nut and backing off just enough for hub to spin freely. Works good now.
But I'm no mechanic.

 

Forgot to explain my logic. I think my wheel is bent or damaged and is causing my spindle nut to back out.

 

I may try that, but I am getting tired of doing this and don't want to get back into this thing once I get it fixed. If it's too tight it may wear out prematurely. New bearings get 5 clicks back to allow for wear during initial break in. If I put it too far in it will re-initiate this process and possible force the bearings too far into the race. If the bearing goes past the race, you lose surface area where the bearings contact causing premature wear and failure. Since they are fairly new with probably less that 6K on them, I may do it when I reassemble the it.

 

I charged all my camera batteries, put the rear on the stands (front wheels blocked for safety), and put 'im in gear. My cameras recorded a bent rim, so new rims took care of the obvious stuff. There's still something subtle in there and I suspect carrier bearing alignment - but I may have to wait for the vibration to get more apparent before I can troubleshoot it.

How are your slide pins and the inside face of your rotors? When you pull the rotors, is there a buildup of rust on the face that the studs are mounted on (I don't know the right word)?

 

I may try the camera thing, I don't know if I have one high speed enough. Have to talk to the wife about her's. I was planning on setting up a dial indicator and slowly turning the wheel, with a mark on the tire to track. Speed may be the key here. My rear rotors are new due to the old one's being cheapos and replaced about 4 years ago. Plan was to put new nice one's on later but I forgot and they had some defects so they went to the can, new one's are on maybe 4 or 5 weeks. I do need to service the rear calipers as I haven't in awhile. The stinking hours this thing sucks out of me.....
Temporary plan (need to go to work in the morning) is to replace wheel with full size spare, pull the shaft and retorque the spindle nut. Hopefully, the vibe will go away. Meanwhile, I will look for a good stock OEM wheel (alloy machined if anyone has some to part with) and order a new spindle nut working on finding the right part number now....

 

After a little research...for future reference that is... Dorman P/N for Left Rear is XXX and Right Rear is XXX Currently running slightly over $10 each on Amazon. Cheaper than anyone else.
Edited: The one I attempted to use was absolute garbage. The tab for the 12 o-clock position on the axle bent and warped. Go buy a Motorcraft. I post the P/N when i get it.

 

I know ya gotta do what ya gotta do, but here is my philosophy on the matter. My personal time is precious to me. With that time, I like to go on long hauls in a capable vehicle. To facilitate this, I put the needed time and money into the truck - but I spend a little extra money for the quality parts with the goal of longevity and preventing re-work. Dorman is made in China, and the metal quality is not the same as OEM.

When you did your recent rotor work - was the mounting surface flat, or did it have a lot of rust on it? Too much rust might effect run-out.

 

It had rust and other oxide build up. It has since been cleaned. I guess I will have to get the camera out and do a run on it.

Edit: Just watched this video ( ) , assuming it was you who did the video, what was the cause of this?

 

That was mine - bad rim. Same location as the run-out video above. I had to make sure the truck was OK before I fired off a Buck$Zooka round for rims.

*Important note* Some 16" aftermarket rims barely clear the front calipers (no room for balance weights without rubbing). I have learned that the best time to do new aftermarket rims is at tire time, then go to 17". I'll probably be doing this 70K miles from now - unless I find somebody to fork over real money for a fresh set of 16" rims with fresh Michelin M/S tires.

 

So far, fairly certain it was a warped wheel, lighter but constant vibration remains. We put the suspected wheel on the balance machine and it demonstrated the exact wobble in the video above, slightly worse.
But with the full spare on....must investigate other problems at the same time.

 

I had more than one bad wheel - the video above made me have a hard look at all of them.

how do your brakes look... particularly on the inside face? I'm wondering if heat is the culprit.

 

Well did a wheel run as your's.
Now this is where it gets weird.
Replacement tire (new steel wheel, spare from last set of tires) has slight lateral runout, probably 1/32 to 1/16 in the treads and at the rim.
Pull the tire and run it on the rotor.
The rotor has vertical runout, but no lateral.
Used a golf tee to place inside the indent in the axle, ever so slight wobble....probably in the thousandths... The surfaces of the hub are too rough to try to place a dial indicator on it and it may not even help.
So I'm thinking there may be visually undetectable problems with the bearings, the race or the race seating surface. I did some sketching on paper and it seems that an out of round race may be the ticket on what I am seeing.
If the wheel was warped enough, and I've put say 500 to 1000 miles on that wheel, could it cause a out of round in the races, or could it be possibly be a warped hub.
My logic leans toward the bearing/races because I cannot think of something that could possibly warp a hub and there are none to be found online...
Since this bearing and race did well all summer and is just now causing problems after moving the wheel to the other side.
What do y'all think?

Edit: Another thought, possibly damaged spindle nut as well. If the nut "washer thingy" is damaged, it could allow some play there as well...

 

Vertical runout is normal if you don't have conical lug nuts to center the holes on the studs. My stockers had flat lug nuts, and I have no idea how the rotors centered.

 

Rotors are supposed to center on the hub with minimal play. I may be making mountains out of mole hills here looking for my problem. I need to make a run with the hub to rotor to check lateral runout and determine if my hubs are out or the rotor. I will pull the rotor and mic the surfaces to check for defects in thickness and again check the rotor seating surface.