Chasing down a wheel whobble

[Houston Ben]

Hi all,
I need some more help. I have a vibration from 47-70 mph that I can feel in the steering wheel. i thought my previous tires were to blame due to being out of round for sitting for a while but after purchasing new tires the wobble remained. I jacked the left front tire up and found there was a little play in something but I could not figure out what. I then spun the tire and found it did not spin in perfect motion (see Video)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsVn...ature=youtu.be

Any ideas what could be wrong? the ball joints are not moving but the wheel still has a wobble in it. I am at a loss for this, I was going to replace the lower control arms but they are not in play when I am spinning the tire by hand.

I will have to check the other side tomorrow to see if it is the same. But I can deff feel and see the vibration/wobble in the steering wheel.

[greg64]

I wasn't able to watch the video. YouTube complained it was private.

[Houston Ben]

Ok, try again

https://youtu.be/OSpWdh2VkT4

I have new idler arm, pitman arm, and tie rod ends, what can be causing this?

[andrewmp6]

Wheel bearings probably.

[greg64]

If you grab the tire (while it is jacked up) from the side (hands top and bottom) and try to rock it in and out, do you feel any play? If there is, I'd agree that the wheel bearings are probably shot.

How's the alignment on the front-end? Improper toe can cause problems too.

[Houston Ben]

Hi Greg,
Yes, there is a tiny bit of play in the wheel when I do as you described. I just had the front end aligned in April have no problems on that area. Ii guess my next course of action is new rotors and bearings.

Thanks.

[andrewmp6]

Really only 3 or 4 things can case a single wheel to wobble like that.With new tires that are balanced and a alignment only things left are wheel bearings or worse case the spindle shaft is bent but that almost never happens.

[SkinnyG]

I'm not convinced that is caused by a bearing. I think it's tire, or rim, or rim and tire related.

Could be the rim is bent, not true, or the tire is not true.

Sometimes the high spot on the tire can be matched to the low spot on the rim to neutralize it.

Swap the front tires to the back and see what it's like. If the problem remains, it wasn't the runout of the tires, and I suck in my diagnosis.

[Houston Ben]

Looks like I found the source of my wobble. I bought new rotors, pads, and bearings today and got on it. I took my drivers side front tire off and spun the rotor and it wobbled (rose up and down) when I spun it just like the tire did. I took the rotor off cleaned the timken bearings, repacked them put on new rotor and spun perfect!

Went out for a little test drive and it appears this fixed the problem. I was able to get up to 65 mph with no vibration, I don't want to get too excited till I get on the freeway with it. Took her back home and did the other side and she runs good. I guess my rotor was not round or the racer was not set all the way in.

Thanks for all the help!

[andrewmp6]

I'm happy you got it fixed and it was easy.

[Houston Ben]

Hi all, Just a little update. The vibration came back and was bad at around 65 mph and up. After swapping some tires around I noticed the vibrations was less noticeable so I figured it was from the wheel/tire set. We have a 98 chevy 1500 at work with same bolt pattern that had been sitting for a while so I decided to swap wheels and see if the problem went away. Well the tires had bad flat spots so that was a no go.

I put my rally wheels back on but rotated the other side and found the front wheel hard to put on the rotor. I could not push it all the way on but when I zipped the lugs down it centered itself. I am assuming this one wheel is a hub-centric wheel as now the vibration is almost gone.

Are hub-centric wheels a must, what about after market? I have seen post about lug centric, do I need a special type of lug?

Thanks for any input on this, I just don't want the wobble to come back with new wheels and tires.