I just bought my step-son's 1996 F150 xlt and I am scratching my head because of the front end.As I go down the city street there's about6" travel in the steering wheel and the front seems to shake or vibrate at sppeds over 35 mph.Any ideas? It has a 4" body lift and looks cool.i plan on fixing it up, but I have to get it safe first.

 

too much play in the steering can be caused by a lot of things.
Loose front end parts - tie rods, pitman arm, bad ball joints, typically the lowers, and of course the steering gearbox could be warn out. There is an adjustment bolt on a lot of them, and some people get lucky by adjusting.

For the shaking/vibration, any or all of the above could contribute, but also warn u-joints, out of round wheels, rotors, imbalanced tires, cupped or corded tires, etc.

Has the truck been aligned recently? Places that do alignments inspect the front end anyway, so if there are problems they can identify it for you.

If you want to do it yourself... it's totally doable just takes a little time to rule out each thing, one at a time.

 

I will take it to a shop to have it aligned as soon as I get the money for two front tires.the drivers side is worn some, but the passenger side is down to the wear bar. Thanks for taking time to give me your opinion.

 

If your rear tires are in good shape, swap them with the front, and take the truck up to your vibration speed (35mph?) and see if it continues. If it does, then I'd suggest that the problem is entirely front-end or driveshaft (u-joint) related. If it goes away, then you know the vibration has to do with the tires, or the balance of the tires/rims/wheels etc. Of course swap the tires back to avoid cutting into them with a loose or misaligned front-end. But a quick romp around the block to see might be worth it.

And sure, happy to help. I spent a month (on and off as I had limited time) trying to diagnose a strange vibration that only occured between 65mph and 67mph, but wasn't noticable above or below that. I balanced the front wheels several times thinking a weight fell off, and I knew it wasn't the front end because I replaced almost everything in the last year. Turned out to be something incredibly stupid.

On the back of the passenger side rim, there was a 1/4" nut smunched into the back side of it between two of the studs. So when I bolted it down with my impact gun, the rim didn't sit perfectly flat on the brake rotor/wheel studs. And the wheel plate warped slightly because of the 20 times I took it on and off that week.

*THEN* I noticed the nut. How the nut got there, who the heck knows. Obviously at some point while I had it off the wheel, maybe when I did the rotors a few months before.

Sometimes this stuff is just annoying at best.

 

Thanks for the advice.it makes plenty of sense and wont cost me anything to try. I think I am a trouble magnet.Today i finally got my wife's Subaru Impreza in the shop.It had a vibration too above 45 mph or so.I had pulled a nail out of the front tire a couple of weeks ago and had it plugged. I was sure that that caused the vibration.Come to find out the wheel/tire was 3 1/2 ounces off when they balanced it.I still am puzzled with that one.
I greatly appreciate you taking the time to help.