My 2000 Ranger with 82K miles started shaking pretty bad earlier this year when above 55 mph. I knew I had torn boots on both lower ball joints and one of the tie rod ends, so I decided to fix the obvious stuff first.

On the front end, I replaced lower and upper ball joints, tie rod ends, sway bar frame bushings, and shocks. At the same time, I replaced the rotors, wheel bearings, and brake pads. On the rear end, I replaced differential gear oil,shocks, brake shoes, brake hardware, and had the drums turned.

As far as the old parts go, I founf that on the driver's side, the old ball joint had some up and down play. Both old tie rod ends were ok despite the boot failure. One old upper ball joint was a little loose and the other was a lot loose.

Replaced all four tires last week and got the front end aligned. Universal joints are still the originals and don't seem to have any play in them. Didn't find any play or obvious problems with the leaf springs or related bushings. Motor and transmission mounts seem to be ok. Front sway bar links and lower control arm bushings look and feel ok.

After repairs, the suspension is really smooth and tracks well now, but the shaking continues when you get above 55 mph. If you accelerate up to 62 mph, it will start shaking right away sometimes and sometimes not. If you cruise along at a steady speed, it will be smooth, slowly start shaking, reach a maximum point, and then slowly go away. Repeats this a lot. It isn't affected by acceleration or braking. When I'm cruising along and it's shaking, turning off OD or putting it in neutral doesn't affect it. When the shaking starts, you can look at the passenger seat and it shakes from side to side, like a shimmy.

I'm out of ideas. Where can this oscillation be coming from? Anyone care to venture a guess before I take it in and get another set of eyes and ears to look at it? Thanks

 

How about a bent rim?

 

Ideas:

Bent rim (as suggested by Ken00)

Unbalanced driveshaft. (Weight has come off of the driveshaft. Shake and shimmy like crazy)

Universal joints might still be bad.

Bent rear axle or axle flange

Bent driveshaft.

 

bad hanger bearing maybe??

 

I have a similar problem on my 95 Ranger (2WD, 144K miles, XLT). Over the past 3 weeks I have replaced the front brake pads, had Sears repair the back brakes, had Sears replace the front wheel bearings and had another repair shop replace a broken leaf spring bracket. Needles to say this has all cost a fortune (more then a 95 ranger is worth). None of the repairs really fixed the shaking problems.

Then last Friday it got really bad. I went back to Sears and discovered that the center drive shaft bearing was shot. On my truck I could visually see that this was bad by just shaking the drive shaft.

Hope this helps.

 

Do you feel the vibration strongest in the steerng wheel, or in the seat of your paints????

If in the steering wheel, look to the front for the problem, if the latter, look to the rear for the problem.

You could have someone else drive it while you follow & observe the driveline & wheels fore & aft, this might help narrow it down some.

 

I ran the truck for a week and stopped by a different tire store today on a whim to get all the tires rebalanced. I saw them add weights to 3 out of 4 of them. The truck still was shaking after that too. How can 4 new tires be that out of balance after only 600 miles?

 

i hav a ranger, and its fine when i drive over 55, but sometimes when i go to stop it vibrates pretty bad. so far, it hasnt been a major problem, and i drive quite a bit, so for now i wouldnt worry about it too much. seems to be a common problem with no solution to be found.

 

Check the wheels for bent/out of round by jacking up each wheel and putting a coke can next to the tire and give the tire a spin. Note the distance between the tire and the can as it spins by, do the tread and the sidewall on each tire. The spec is about 50 thous, but you will see it if it bent very much.
Dave

 

I took the truck for a test drive this morning after putting gas in it and the shaking was quite a bit less since they did the rebalance. So I dropped it off at the shop this morning and told them to start with the tires and rims and find out if anything is not straight or round, then proceed to other areas. So we'll see what they find come Monday

 

I've banged my head against the wall with this same problem..had the tires balanced, checked, rims checked, replaced ujoints, the carrier bearing..just to find out it was the drive shaft that needed balancing.

 

That's a possibility on this problem too. It has a single aluminum driveshaft with the original ujoints, so I might be taking a trip to Houston DriveTrain if nothing else pans out.

 

The drive shaft seems to be the one area where most of the repair shops fail to diagnose. I had a similar problem 20 years ago on a Thunderbird. Then one day the u-joint failed and the shaft fell off. Upon replacement the shaking problems went away. You might think I would have remembered this when it started on my 95 Ranger, but NO, I had to spend a fortune on unneeded repairs until some kid in the repair shop noticed how bad my shaft bearing was.

By-the-way, I think the shaft bearing is only something that is found only on the extended cab Rangers.

p.s. - I really like this web site and forum. You guys have helped me a lot with my truck. Keep up the good work.

 

The word from the mechanic is: Left rear rim is bent pretty badly and the other 3 are also bent, but not as much. So I'll need new rims to fix the problem.

I have hit some bad potholes about half a dozen times where it made me cringe, and I've bumped into curbs quite a few times, so I guess it added up over the past 5 years

Although it's not very often you get to go to your wife and say "Honey, the mechanic said I HAVE to get new rims"

 

Thats a good way of looking at the problem, and how can she say no, LOL.