Chasing a vibration f250

[Benno]

My first thought is drive shaft. My fix is drive 77 or 83mph.

[RifleBowPistol]

It could be the balance of the driveshaft, may need to take it to a driveshaft shop and have them balance it. Also just because you got the tires balanced, that does not mean the problem is not the tires. It could be a bad wear pattern on the tires. I know my truck tires right now have bad wear patterns. There are still a few shops around that have a machine that will shave the tires and true them up. Those things can work miracles on making vehicles ride smoother. I had never seen one before, but then worked in one dealer that had one. It was pretty amazing what it would do for flat sided tires. All dealers should have one, should, but most don't. The one dealer I worked in that had one, used it all the time on new cars, that had just sold. They would send the car to service and get the tires trued up. Some of those cars sit in the same spot for many months before the finally sell.

I almost got my hands on that tire truing machine. When that dealership, built a new dealership at a new location, they told the guys in the shop to get rid of all of the old shop equipment, they only wanted brand new equipment in the new shop. So everything including that tire truing machine went away, much of it wound up at the local swap meet. Of all of the equipment in the shop, that was one of the pieces I wanted, but did not get.

It is possible, you might have some loose tie rods, drag link or other steering parts that are loose. It's not near as bad of a problem with rear drive vehicles, but with fwd vehicles, a loose tie rod end can result in a vibration that will shake the hell out of the car.

[Rubberdown]

Driveshaft was just rebuilt and balanced at the shop. Saw it on the machine and it’s good. Naturally it was removed when rebuilt.

It is a long bed.

Does not do it at 40.

I really think it’s a tire. Maybe I’ll buy another wheel and tire to use as a spare and change them one at a time.

[Rubberdown]

Me being a retired former Chevy dealer and at 80 MPH it could be more than a few things causing the problem. Good luck.

What is the point of this post. Literally you did nothing to help and just said you used to be a mechanic.

I used to be a mechanic at the Porsche garage. Doesn’t mean I have figured anything out yet.

[MossyRockRanch]

I had the same issue but my fix was a new set of tires.

[Walker]

What is the point of this post. Literally you did nothing to help and just said you used to be a mechanic.

I used to be a mechanic at the Porsche garage. Doesn’t mean I have figured anything out yet.

These kind of post give me a little head shake at 80mph.

[RifleBowPistol]

Like one guy said it could be driveline angle, but since you don't seem to have the other common problems of the driveline angles being off, I would put that a little farther down the list of possible problems.

I was working in Ford dealers from the 90s to the early 2000s. In 2000 or 2001, Ford decided to drop the factory 4" lift and only had the option for the 2" lift. So the dealership sales department, for the dealership I worked for. Decided they would put cheap 4" lifts in most, if not all of the 4X4 trucks that they bought. Then had the make ready guys installing them, because they would install them cheaper, than the service department. That worked out very well for them. About 98% to 100% of those trucks had driveline vibrations, and most were the 7.3 Powerstroke trucks. Some of the 7.3 trucks had some very serious low speed driveline shudders, when accelerating at low speeds. Basically giving it a lot of throttle from a stop, or speeds under 35 mph.

Most of those trucks had the driveline angle way off, then some were very far off, since the geniuses in the sales department decided to put some 6" lifts as upgrades in some of the trucks. Those trucks were horrible from a standing start, with a 7.3. The trucks they put the 6" lifts in, you had to baby those things around or it felt like it was going to sling the driveshaft out of the truck. But our sales department made a bunch of money, doing that dumb shet, so they did not care.

I spent a lot of time measuring driveline angles and ordering factory Ford parts to fix the problems. I had to put wedges between the axle and blocks on some. Most got different carrier bearing bracket, to lower the carrier bearing. Then I want to say, Ford had either different transmission crossmembers or transmission mounts, that would lower the back of the transmission and the transfer case.

Those trucks would have a vibration at various speeds, but the most noticeable was the horrible shudder at low speeds, with the pedal on the floor. Then at the same time Dana made a bunch of bad Dana 80 gear sets. For quite a while there, getting a new set of Dana 80s gears from Ford, took months. Ford used the 10.5 in the single rear wheel F250/F350. The Sterling 9.75, 10.25 and then the 10.5, we had very few problems with. The 10.5s used in the Super Duties, we had very few problems with. The axle bearing seals used with the older 10.25 rear ends were the biggest problem we had with any of those three axles. Then they used the Dana 80 under the F350 dually and the F450s. The Dana 80s, when they had a bad gear set, would make a whining noise at two different mph, usually two points, that the owner of the truck, drove their truck at, often. There were so many noisy Dana 80s out there, they ran out of Dana 80 gear sets, in about four months. By six months or so into the Dana 80 gear whine mess, it was taking us a month to three months to get the gears in, depending on what gear ratio the truck had. The 4.56s of the F450s we could get the easiest, since there were fewer of them on the road. The 4.10s were hard to get.

So we had many trucks with a drivetrain shudder under hard acceleration at low speeds, then higher speed cruising driveline vibration. Then a gear whine at two speeds, if they had a Dana 80. Then if the customer was very observant, they would also figure out that their truck was dog tracking. Because of those dealer installed 4" lift kits. We had one customer come in and show us how his truck was dog tracking, he thought his frame was bent. Did not take us long to figure out it was that wonderful make ready installed 4" lift kit was the problem.

Back in 2000-2001, I was very busy, fixing driveline vibrations and gear whine. I had a little experience with driveline vibrations before that crap, but I had a lot of experience by the time we got past that mess.

[twosixteens]

Hard to imagine an 80 mph vibration not being a tire are they mud tires?

[Rubberdown]

Yeah. It’s a 2wd with no lift or anything. Literally no noises or anything but the vibration. I’m torn, it’s a ranch truck in reality so I don’t want to dump a ton of money in it but I have fixed literally every other thing that’s wrong with it so at this point... might as well.

[Rubberdown]

Hard to imagine an 80 mph vibration not being a tire are they mud tires?

Nope. Just some Bridgestone duelers. I have a different truck with stupid tires on it for when I need to look cool.

I agree. I really think it’s a tire. I’ll see what I can come up with here. Thanks to all of you for your help.

[jfk47]

Good luck. I had a bad vibration in a new 2016 for 11 months before I was smart enough to fix the problem.

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OK......so what was the fix ?

[Rubberdown]

The fix is he’s one post closer to pope and young.

[doublearrow]

2017 Duramax.
New wheels, new rims, road force balance, tcm programming nothing else worked

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[Rubberdown]

Does it vibrate at 40mph plus 1 or 2 like it does at 80 plus 1 or 2?

Never noticed it before but I checked this today and it does do it at 40 +- 1 or 2. Aaaaand it’s worse than at 80. I just always thought I was driving over a bumpy spot in the road.

[DaveC]

I missed the year if you posted it.
Back when I was more active in the F-250 forums there was a time frame (2011's+) where adding air bags and putting a few #'s in them was a fix for rear end hop/vibration at high speeds on the Long beds- they were prone to this compared to the shorts.

If yours is just a generic vibration I doubt that would be your fix.
If you can feel it in the rear alone, it may be.

Too bad you can't swap wheels / tires with a like vehicle just to run it up to speed to rule the wheels & tires out.


It smells like Kingfisher789 might be onto something.