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voilent front end shake

Hello to the group, Have a friend with a late model (guessing 2000 or so) F150, Triton V8. The other day he and his wife were telling me about a problem they have been having when driving down the road or highway, with no warning the front end will start to shake violently. The motion he made was of the steering wheel turning quickly left to right (couple inches) over and over. He said of course the whole truck is shaking and the only thing you can do is clamp on the binders (brakes) until it stops. He said he has looked at everything in the front end and had the local garage (very good shop in my opinion) look at it and they cant find anything wrong. That day we looked at it and all the obvious stuff in the front end looks fine, tie rod ends, pitman, ball joints, bearings, etc.. Thought I would throw it out to the group to see if anyone had any ideas or had heard of it being a problem on some models.

Thanks, Mark

Reply to
Mark & Shauna
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Bent or broken belt in a tire, maybe? try rotating them front to back and see if that helps. is it 2 or 4wd?

Reply to
~oddball

Check the wheel lugs.

Reply to
Mellowed

The bushings in the rocker arm/tie rod are shot. An easy way to tell is lift the vehicle with wheels suspended and try rockng the arms and watching the bushings. There will be some slop I would bet. Common problem on vans too. Both of mine after about 50K... New bushings are cheap.

Reply to
goiner

If he has recently put tires on the truck, and they are square shouldered tires, he could be experiencing "bump steer" when he hits an anomaly in the road. Especially if it's a 4X4. Lots of people experience new weird things after making changes to a vehicle, but don't put it together with what may have changed, i.e. the tires. Could have loose lugs, etc.

Spdloader

Reply to
Spdloader

I had a 4x4 that I had put oversize tires on (16x48). The front end shook on it and the only fix I come up with was to put a stabilizer (shock) on the front end. That fixed the problem. I think this might be the "bump steer" that Spdloader was talking about

Reply to
David Coleman

Yep.

Spdloader

Reply to
Spdloader

Thanks to all for the replies, some further information, it is actually a 250 super duty (saw the truck today) and should have included that its a 2WD. I will pass along the bump steer and the rocker bushings to them a.s.a.p. It may give them, and the garage, something more to look at.

The bump steer sounds like what I was guessing.

Thanks aga> Hello to the group,

Reply to
Mark & Shauna

Actually, it's not. What you are describing is not bump steer. Bump steer does not shake the truck to the point you lose the fillings in your teeth. I bet his does...The violent shaking you describe is real common with ford trucks going back to at least 1967 when they started using twin I beam. I agree with one poster...They need some front end work somewhere. The radius arm bushings are quite likely. But it can be other things, such as worn out ball joints, kingpin bushings, etc, etc. He needs to have it checked by someone who is more familiar with ford trucks and the dreaded tooth loosening shimmy. He's got something wore out in the front end somewhere. MK

Reply to
Mark Keith

I think you're probably right. If you look at popular science 100 years ago, you'll find the problem of shimmy was basically invented with the automobile. It is caused by the dynamics of the steering geometry and tires on pavements. It isn't caused by one specific component or design. I think some geometries are worse than others, but looseness is the key to getting a really great shimmy.

Reply to
Joe

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