Hello All,

In the last 2-3 weeks my ex has developed an intermittent shake in the front end. Most of the time there is no shake some times it is just a little shake in the steering wheel and sometimes it is a terrible shake that is so violent it tries to throw mostly empty water bottles out of the cup holder. I can drive 100+ miles with no shake at all or 10 miles between episodes. It doesn’t matter if I am on the highway, back country roads, or driving city blocks. There is nothing that seems to trigger it to stop or start

I haven’t been able to replicate it at will. It really starts and stops randomly. It can last less than a minute or go for 15 minutes. Stopping the truck and going again doesn’t make it go away neither does turning either direction. It just clears up on its own as randomly as it begins.

it drives as strait as an arrow normally but, when it is shaking the truck pulls slightly to the right. After a period of prolonged shaking the right front brakes get hot and while braking it feels like I have a “warped rotor”. When it is not shaking for a long time the brake temps are equal and there is no pulsating in the pedal.

i jacked it up and checked the ball joints and they are good and gave it a shake at the 3:00 and 9:00 positions with no movement. The wheels turn smoothly when jacked up. I turned the wheels both ways to full lock and spun the wheels and there was no binding of the U-joints that I could feel.

what should I check next?

P.S. 2003 EB 7.3 diesel 4x4.

 

Look at the track bar bushings, In addition it also sounds like an ABS issue. How are your hub bearings? age? etc.

 

3 & 9? You need to check ball joints at 12 and 6 o clock positions or better yet is to jack it up so the weight is off the tire and get a prybar inbetween the axle and knuckle and see if you get any movement that way. 3 and 9 might tell you if your tie rods are loose though.

 

Thank you,
I will check the track bar bushings.
unknown age on the bearings. I bought my Ex a year and a half ago from a dealer and did not get much history with the truck.

Sorry I was not more clear with my initial write up. I was typing from my phone while trying to keep an eye on the rug rats.
the 3 & 9 was to check for any movement in the tie rod ends and for any hub bearing movement. I also shook it from 12 & 6 with no movement to check for hub movement. I put a pry bar between the bottom of the tire and the floor to check the ball joints. I did all of the shaking and lifting of the tire with the front end jacked up a few inches off the floor. I did not try between the axel and knuckle for movement that will be added to my list of things to check today.

Are there any other things I should check? I am going to try to find some time today to get this figured out.

 

Just to give a little more info on the truck. Last year when I bought the truck I put new tires on it (Nitto ridge grapplers) which have ~15,000 miles on them and have been rotated 2x ready for a third time soon. Lug nuts were torqued to 150 ft/lbs each time.

The sway bar bushings and end links were replaced when I bought it also.

The steering dose not have much slop in it. It has less than most if not all of the dozen or more of the Super Duty trucks from this generation that I have driven. It does have a problem I have not gotten into sorting out where the steering feels like it wants to turn the wheel back towards the center on long turns. When I make a long sweeping turn like an exit ramp where you hold the wheel turned in the same spot for a while there it a little push back towards center every 2 seconds. This is very repeatable and had been that way since I bought the truck. It is just a little quick push towards center felt in the steering wheel. It is not enough to change direction of the truck even which one hand on the wheel.

There is a duel steering stabilizer on it. I am not sure of the brand. It was on there when I purchased the truck. The stabilizer and shocks are fairly new looking. They are silver but do not have a brand sticker on them. I have never taken the time to look to see if there is any information stamped in the body of the shocks to determine the maker.

The truck appeared to be fairly well maintained. All of the ball joints appeared to be newer moog ball joints. I don’t think they put new seals in when they did the ball joints as the auto locking hubs do not work. 4 wheel drive works if I manually turn the hubs from auto to lock. So I wanted to fix this any way in case my wife needs to drive it if we get snow.

Hopefully the additional information will help the brain trust here point me in the right direction. I w

 

I had the same exact issue with intermittent shaking and hot right front brake. Ended up replacing the right front brake caliper and hose and it never did it again. I think the caliper drags heating up the brake rotor and causing it to warp when hot creating the shake. You might get lucky and pull the vacuum tubes of the hubs and take a drill bit and make sure the nipples are clear. I replaces a seal once on m excursion only to find out after I replaced it that the nipple was clogged and the auto hub started to work again.

 

Had the same thing happen to me less than six months ago with the passenger front caliper intermittently sticking. I took an IR thermometer with the laser on it and shot both front hubs and the driver would read 180ish while the passenger was 300+. I went ahead and swapped out the hubs, rotors and both calipers since I was going to be there anyway. No problems since.

 

I agree with new brake lines and check the calipers.

 

It sounds like the brake caliper is hanging up. Here are a couple things I would check out. When nit starts to do the shaking pull off in a safe spot jack up the front side that the brake was getting hot and see if you can spin the tire. if not open the bleeder screw on the caliper and see if you get a squirt of fluid. close the bleeder and see if the wheel spins now. If it does then I would bet that you have a bad flexible brake line for that wheel. If the wheel doesn't turn freely after that it is a bad caliper or bad caliper slides more than likely the hose or caliper not both. This is the easiest way to diagnosis a brake issue of this kind.Hopefully this helps you

Bob

 

Update: it was the brakes. The passenger side caliper was dragging enough trust I couldn’t turn the wheel and the passenger side caliper was also dragging just not as bad.
2 new calipers, new rotors and pads were installed. I have put 300+ miles on it without anymore random shanking in the front end.
Thank you all!

 

Kudos to you for coming back and letting us know. Way too often the resolution is an unknown.