ProComp 52 Series

[Forge]

Hello all. New to this forum. Been reading it for a while. Looking for some advice. I just installed ProComp 52 Series (16x8 4.25 backspace) wheels. No rubbing with wheel or tire. Noticed shimmy at 45mph to about 65-ish. The wheels are the black steely D-window ones that everybody runs. Just had the frontend aligned. Shimmey did not happen with stock wheels. Had the wheels Load balanced but still not fixed. Bought hub rings (even though wheel is lugcentric and should not need them) but still not fixed. Tires are new. Load balance guy said wheels are true and that one of the tires was slightly out of round but not enough to cause the shimmey. Getting it replaced Tuesday anyway. At this point I am $500 into $295 set of wheels. Don't think it is a suspension issue because tire guy should have seen it and it didn't happen with stock wheel.

Anyone else experiance this? Suggestions?

Thanks Forge

 

[Road Angels]

Bad tie rod end? bad lower joint? could be a few things, is it felt more in the steering wheel than the body? is she high miles? one thing about the wheel swap is they are way heavier than the stock stuff, so things that are marginal in the steering system are going to show up, even shocks that are worn and were ok with the stock wheels will allow wheel bounce and vibration that the lighter stock wheels didnt cause

 

[Forge]

Bad tie rod end? bad lower joint? could be a few things, is it felt more in the steering wheel than the body? is she high miles? one thing about the wheel swap is they are way heavier than the stock stuff, so things that are marginal in the steering system are going to show up, even shocks that are worn and were ok with the stock wheels will allow wheel bounce and vibration that the lighter stock wheels didnt cause

Truck has about 70k. The place I got the tires installed has had it on there lift a couple times and also had it aligned there. i would hope they would have noticed tie rod or ball joint...then again they haven't really impressed me that much. when they first installed them (regular wheel balance) I could feel in the steering wheel more. Once I got them Load balanced it is not so much in the steering wheel. That is something to think about...the wheel being heavier. If it is a heavier wheel issue (suspension issue)...wonder how to figure out what needs to be replaced. Funny thing is I got these wheels cause I liked the look and more importantly the Price.

 

[Forge]

The latest:
Replaced out of round tire. Still have shimmy. Put stock wheels and tires back on and shop says shimmy happens with them. I don't remember shimmy with stock setup. Maybe because I was not looking for it. Shop also noticed that when taking off from a stand still there is a clunk. I would describe it as a slight delay between the driveshaft and rear end (power transfer between the two). They said they can recreate this with it on the rack. This is the second ranger I have owned that had this "clunk" (delay) on takeoff. Almost like something is loose in the rear end. Maybe I will get lucky and all this will be the result of something loose in the rear-end.

Anybody else had this delay in the rear-end?

 

[Forge]

Rear Diff

Pulled the rear diff cover and there was tiny bit of metal shavings. Couple pins were little loose. Guess I could try a rebuild of diff but that does not guarantee the spider gears would not mess up. Or buy another rear-end from jYard and hope it did not have same issue. Either way $700 in labor depending where you go. Not sure what I will do just yet. Only choice now is drive it and see if it gets worse. I have owned a 2000 (117k miles) and 02 (75k miles) ranger XLT 4x4 and test drove an 05 with 55k and all three had this clunk. Tire guy pointed out that above the rear hub was a shot of faded red paint. Wonder if that is a mark from jYard? I mean had it already been replaced before I got truck? hhmm... Either way Christmas budget just got real tight.

All advice welcome.

 

[Forge]

I found there was a recall for the 02 rear diff. Of course it was the manual tranny Rangers and the FX4. Leaves me out. Found alot of complaints online that Auto trans models had same issue but they did not recall. I wonder if they used same manufacturer for rear diff for all the 4x4 models?

 

[superds]

My brother's 99 Ranger 4x4 3.0 AT has the same clunk at take off. Annoying but it's been that way for years with no signs of failure.

There was a different axle used in some of the FX4 and FX4 L2 Rangers (2002-2003, IIRC), it was an 8.8 with 31 spline axles compared to 28 spline axles on all the other 8.8 rear end Rangers.

 

[Dune Runner]

Lube the slip joint on the drive shaft to get rid of the clunk. it's a well known problem. I used a needle on my grease gun through the boot. Pump until it won't pump anymore. Clunk is gone.

 

[superds]

My brother did try that, still couldn't get the clunk to go away. Maybe he'll need to revisit this with more grease this time.