NEED HELP!

On my 94 XLT I have just devloped very bad vibrations on the end. They are not noticable until around 60mph. They become severe when I turn to the right as in making a lane change. Not as sever when going to the left. In either case everything is shaking in the car including my arm as I hold on to the wheel.

I just got done replacing my radial arm bushings with polyurathane as well as my end link bushings so I don't think this is a problem. The truck has about 180K on it.

Any ideas?

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I think that you have air in your power steering system. Whenever I do any work on the front of my '96 Ex that involves turning the wheels with the truck up on jacks (like working on brakes), there's always some power steering fluid that squirts out of the p/s reservoir vent hole. This results in air being introduced into the p/s system. Then upon driving the truck, I get the same kind of violent vibration that you mentioned, except in my case it happens more at low speed, especially while turning. It feels like I'm driving way too fast on a washboard road.

However, after driving 20 or 30 miles, the air is purged and all is normal once again. The Ex is the only vehicle I've ever had that does this. So go drive it at low speed, and it should fix itself. Good luck!

 

Interesting. Never heard of this before but I do have a leaking HP hose on the power steering box.

 

Loose wheel nuts, out of balance wheels maybe?

 

ever had lower ball joints replaced? do the tires show this wear pattern?

 

I think '94 has a different P/S system than the '95+...

If you've got twin I-beam suspension, the P/S vibration should be a factor.

I would take a good look at the bushings on the INSIDES (toward the middle of the truck) of the I-beams. I had one once like yours... (however it was an F-150) vibrated like crazy at higher speeds... especially once you start into a turn...

I did all the same stuff to it... radius bushings, shocks... tires... ended up being excessive play in the inner I-beam bushings.

Good luck.

 

Not this issue again. My 1993 just clipped 180K and I only 3 months ago finally got ride of the shakes after 6 years of suffering through them. You can look up a thread with a lot of history labled soemthing like "vibration, at wits ends".

In early 2000 I lifted the truck, 4 new shocks and 4 new BFG all terrain 31" tires. Aligned. Ran beautiful, smooth and straight for about a year. Then the shakes slowly started. Finally ballanced the tires, no change. Rebalanced, no change.

Since this wasn't a daily driver, I didn't pay a lot of attention to it but did try many things over the next few years. Ended up with all bew bsuhings - every rubber one changed to poly urethane, 4 new ball joints, new driveshaft u-joints, alignment...still had the shakes and the truck didn't go straight. Alignment shop was stumped, swapped the 2 front tires side to side and the truck pulled the other way. Bad tires.

Too damn cheap to replace the tires for just a test and with another 10K easy left on them, I kept driving. In August this year, driving home pulling a trailer through the desert in afternoon heat, the shakes quadrupeled. Pulled off the freeway and all 4 tires had buldges in the thread. They had seperated and were litterally falling apart.

Forced now, new tires, didn't touch anything else - runs straight, smooth and like brand new...as it should with a completely new suspension.

Needless to say, I did not go back to BFG's - good year wranglers now. i don't now for sure if this shake issue was always the problem. As you know the radius arm bushings are crap on these. They did go bad on me in the middle of all this to. And twice I found a loose front shock that contributed a lot (better after tightend).

All I can say is start checking anything that holds the tires in position and don't eliminate the tires themselves too quickly.