Ride just got real rough...

[atozogr]

Hi all,

I recently had my truck inspected and serviced. Changed the fluids and filters, rotated the tires, typical stuff. Got it back and immediately noticed that it is now riding very rough. Bounces around on the tamest of roads. Not sure really how to describe it other than it almost has a feeling like the tires have not been tightened. Of course it comes and goes so it makes it hared to nail down. It does now have a wobble that seems to come on a certain speeds, particularly when down-shifting and letting the engine drag. In addition to feeling every bump in the road it also seems dicier going over bumps and takes longer to recover. Since that time, the shop has gone over it three times, balanced the wheels, etc. No change. Still rides like crap. Has anyone else had something like this happen? Any suggestions on where to go from here?

Thanks

[MD05]

Check the tire pressure might be to high.

[Davey~do]

As well you might check for a broken belt in one of your tires. Only way I know to do it is swap your spare around all the tires doing drives in between. Tedious, but a broken belt can really kill a ride.

[atozogr]

Thank you for the replies. My tire pressure is at the recommended 65 PSF. I was wondering if I didn't have a bad tire but the odd thing was that when I swapped the tires front to back I still did not feel the vibration in the steering wheel. If I had a bad tire wouldn't I feel it in the steering wheel? I always feel the shaking in the seat. I will probably still try what you recommend and switch them out to see if I can isolate a tire.

Service department at the local Ford dealer said that it sould be the shocks. According to them sometimes when a vehicle is put up on a lift the shocks can get an air bubble in them. Never heard of this before. One other thing he recommended is that I lubricate the ends of the leaf springs. He said to hammer a flat head screw driver in between them and spray some WD-40 in there to help the ends of the leaf springs slide past each other. What do you think about that?

Thanks again.

[MD05]

Originally Posted by atozogr

Thank you for the replies. My tire pressure is at the recommended 65 PSF. I was wondering if I didn't have a bad tire but the odd thing was that when I swapped the tires front to back I still did not feel the vibration in the steering wheel. If I had a bad tire wouldn't I feel it in the steering wheel? I always feel the shaking in the seat. I will probably still try what you recommend and switch them out to see if I can isolate a tire.

Service department at the local Ford dealer said that it sould be the shocks. According to them sometimes when a vehicle is put up on a lift the shocks can get an air bubble in them. Never heard of this before. One other thing he recommended is that I lubricate the ends of the leaf springs. He said to hammer a flat head screw driver in between them and spray some WD-40 in there to help the ends of the leaf springs slide past each other. What do you think about that?

Thanks again.

What i did with mine was, Tighten the U bolts holding the springs to the axle. While this did not completely eliminate the bounce It helped greatly.

Food for thought: The springs have plastic wear pads at teh ends and they well, wear out. the center of the stack has what looks to be a spacer between each spring leaf ( Plastic?) Iput 3 turns on each U-bolt nut and compressed the pack that much more. Next I am looking at removign the springs and try removing the spacers to see if that reduces the bounce at 45mph.

[gwtshudy]

Thanks MD05 I'll give that a try. Now that I am back early from vacation I am going to start troubleshooting this thing in earnest.

[CaseyB]

Check your leaf springs to see if any are snapped, i only noticed i had one broke in half when i went to change out the rear shocks