Strange vibration & Noise (Need help)

[SimplyTheBess]

Info:
98 Ford Ranger, 4 banger RWD. 200K Miles
I may have (2) separate issues but they started at the same time so I think they are related.

Symptoms:
At 40-45 MPH and again from 60-65, vibration in pedals and cab (moderate) some vibration in wheel but may be caused from the whole cab shaking. Feels like the passenger side rear tire is low or out of round (But isn't see below), intermediate pinging noise (Sounds like a penny in the dryer) while accelerating and sometimes when just crusing on the highway from the rear of the truck. Pinging noise is VERY random but vibration is constant at those speeds ONLY.

At Idle:
The truck is fine. No noise, no vibration. Even with revving the engine slowly from idle to WOT there is no 'pinging'. Jumping up and down on the truck on each corner produces no noise from the suspension except the typical squeaks

At low speeds:
Some 'pinging' noise no vibration. Most of the pinging happens when accelerating from a stop sign or red light.

On highway:
Not as much 'pinging' when cruising but sometimes it's still there. Vibration in cab and pedals when I hit those speed limits listed above, when not in range no vibration but some pinging still. When I press my foot to the floor with the clutch and the truck is out of gear the vibration CONTINUES (until I get out of the vibration range) however any 'pinging' noise instantly stops if the truck is not in gear.

What I have had done:
Truck tires have been balanced, aligned and rotated with little to no improvement. Air pressure is the same in all 4 tires.

Thoughts:
(1)U Joints &/or something in the differential? (Would explain vibration but I wouldn't think it would continue once I took it out of gear)
(2)Wheel bearings. (I would think if this was causing the noise, me taking my foot off the gas would not effect it and it would be more constant)
(3) something metal got caught up in the exhaust somewhere (would explain the pinging but not the vibration.)

Any help would be appreciated. Kind of at a loss and I don't want to just start replacing things.

 

[Brandon Nootenboom]

Go underneath your truck and give the driveline a good shake, feel if there's any slop in the joints, if you have a telescope in your driveline, grab on each side and twist it to see if there is any slop in the splines-there should be no slop in either the joints or telescope. Next, jack up your truck and give all 4 wheels a shake to see if the wheel bearings are loose or any other suspension/steering components just to rule them all out.

You can at least rule all of those things out by checking them out. And when you say the "pinging" how far apart are the pings?

 

[SimplyTheBess]

when you say "shake" do you mean in up, down, left, right? or Twisting/rotating the drive shaft? I visually inspected the U-joints yesterday and found nothing that concerned me.

I'll jack the car up and look at the tires too and get back to you.

Regarding the pinging noise, it is very sporadic. The closest sound I can describe it as is, taking the tab off of an empty soda can and shaking it about. As I mentioned above, taking the truck out of gear instantly stops the sound. The sound remains if I downshift to slow down without my foot on the gas (which makes sense if I have something rattling around in my exhaust.)

 

[daniel3507]

Could the pinging be detonation or whatever its called? Have you tried a higher octane to see if it helps at all?

Sent from my LS670 using Tapatalk

 

[06RangerXLT]

sheck to see if your truck threw a wheel weight. and look for a leaking shock. grab the tires and give each one a wiggle side to side and top to bottom. there shouldnt be any clunking or movement.

theres alot that will do this.

 

[SimplyTheBess]

Thanks for the tips. I'll jack it up when I get home from work tonight and check the tires and drive train for excessive movement. Hopefully it's just a wheel bearing or something easy. It's my daily driver and I don't like driving the car show car back to work and back ><. I'm thinking the chirping/pinging noise is something in the exhaust because the exhaust pipe is extremely rusted.

I don't think it is a wheel weight ( I looked for that) due to the fact that the tires were balanced & aligned this weekend and didn't fix the issue. I'm running Bilstein's shocks on the rears which probably have 50K miles on them at least. Guess that could be a factor but I would think I would hear the leaf springs making noise when I jumped on the truck in the driveway. as I mentioned at a dead stop there is no vibration and no odd noises no matter what I try to do, only happens when the truck is moving.

 

[SimplyTheBess]

Well I had it jacked up and rattled everything around. Nothing moved a lot or felt clunky. I took a video of the worst tire movement which was the passenger rear (Also where the tailpipe is so hard to tell if it is an exhaust issue or bearing issue) Drive line didn't move more than 1/16 of an inch if that. The only noise it makes is at the beginning of the video when I was twisted it.

Still lost on this one guys...





You know after watching the video of the tire moving it looks kind of bad. Didn't feel that bad when I was doing it. What do you guys think?

 

[adsm08]

Did the bearing feel loose? It certainly looks like a lot of play, but feel it just as, if not more, important as the appearance of movement. If the wheel felt tight but still moves it's probably not a bearing. If it has a distinct loose feel then I'd get a bearing.

 

[SimplyTheBess]

Yeah it felt tight. I Think it looks bad because of how close the phone was to the tire. Gotta change the tranny filter in the show car tomorrow, will give me some time to think about what to test next on the truck.

 

[redneck_rainey]

its u joints bro, i chased the same issue, lay under ur truck in park and have a buddy push it back and forth, the driveshaft will clunk each way from slop. rangers love killing the u joints, ive done mine twice for that issue, itll get worse and be unbareable at about 55-75mph

 

[ap3x]

If there was any front end play (i.e. wheel bearings, tie rods, ball joints, sway bars, excessively worn suspension) , a reputable alignment shop would not align the vehicle unless they warn you whats wrong and you absolutely insist to get the alignment.

 

[SimplyTheBess]

its u joints bro, i chased the same issue, lay under ur truck in park and have a buddy push it back and forth, the driveshaft will clunk each way from slop. rangers love killing the u joints, ive done mine twice for that issue, itll get worse and be unbareable at about 55-75mph

Does sound like this.
http://www.ehow.com/about_5779989_signs-bad-universal-joint_.html

 

[DRanger024]

Put new U-joints in it and come back and tell us what happens. They're cheap and probably need replaced anyways. My truck did the same thing but I caught it right at the beginning. What you are hearing is the drive shaft tube magnifying the sound of needle bearings getting eaten alive by the caps. Now, I dont know about your truck, but mine would stop this noise briefly if I let off the throttle. Then as soon as the rear wheels caught up to the drive shaft and put pressure on the joints, it would start back up. Get back into the gas and it would go away until the drive shaft caught back up to the rear wheels.



Here is also an example... this is how it starts. The Heep vid above is what happens if you let it go too long. FAR TOO LONG!

 

[SimplyTheBess]

Bought the U joints, had the car up in the air and was turning the driveshaft with the truck in neutral and the E-brake off. Only one tire turned...

That's strange. so I spin the tire that moved, It rolled pretty good. Went over to side that didn't move. Scrape scrape scape noises. Hmmmm.

Took off the tire and went to take off the what I believe is called the brake shoe and it was very hard to come out. When it did I hear a "clang" and then realized that the brake pads had expanded out even further. With the shoe off the axle spun fine. I trace the brake issue down to the E-brake cable which was WAY to tight. The cable was replaced about a month ago when I was rebuilding the front end suspension on my other car and didn't have the garage space to F with it. I couldn't figure out how to adjust the parking brake on just the one side so I just reached under the driver side door and yanked the cable way down. Then put it all back together and went for a test drive.

Result: NO vibration and less noise. Still some pinging noise but I really believe it's just my exhaust and I didn't hear it during the winter because I had the cab closed up.

I drove it for about 10 mins on the highway, then pulled over and set the E-brake and released it about 5 times. (to build up tension again) Then back on the highway. Vibration came back. went about 5 mins and turned off on the side of the road, pulled the cable back down, no vibration all the way home. For now I'm just using the clutch as a parking brake until I figure out how to adjust the cables.

 

[SimplyTheBess]

sometimes your first guess is the right one.

I let my dad drive the truck while I sat in the bed. The noise was directly under me, not by the exhaust. So took off the drive shaft. HOLY F balls batman the bolts that held that sucker on after 14 years and 200,000 miles did NOT want to break free. I was literally turning the bolt so hard that the truck was climbing UP the ramp. I eventually broke them loose by rocking the truck back and forth to build up momentum until I heard a SNAP. Then prayed it wasn't the bolt head or the wrench. Luckily it wasn't. Even after all 4 bolts were out the drive shaft still held in place. Had to beat it with a hammer to finally get it to drop.

Then the fun part. I beat the hell out of the U joints till no hell was left to beat. took about 30 minutes per side of u joint. (So about 2 hours of swinging the hammer. Broke a bunch of stuff. a hammer, split of piece of rebar (really) chipped a piece of concrete off of my garage, and 2 pieces of wood. When they did come off it was obvious what was wrong. No bearings left at ALL just rust powder. Install went a lot easier.

The final result, no vibration, no noise. Luckily the new U joints have a zerk fitting so hopefully won't be doing this again at 400,000 miles!