Balancing Advice please

Ok this is what I did. Got pissed off. Went ape shit on the truck and grabbed my torque wrench went at every single bolt no matter the size and location that I touched during the lift install. Everything in torque. Got to lower control arms about 2 turns on drivers inner. The rest tight as hell. Then looked at the uppers. I know for a fact I didn't touch the damn things but here goes. 10 full turns before hitting 100 ft lbs on driver and 6 full turns on passenger. Went for a drive couldn't get the steering rack to budge. During the drive noticed holy hell no shakes or vibes on the front end until like 53. Pull over plug up gps measure speed. At 52 small vibe and shake. 53 almost gone 54 -55 smooth again no shakes or vibes. 51 no vibes 52 small shake and vibe. 53 going away again at 54 55 smooth. WTF. who loosed the damn uppers. Does the alignment shop mess with those. Or possible they messed with them and they fucked it up? Then look at wheels. ONE WEIGHT ON EACH OF THE 4 TIRES all on the outside. Just one clamp on weight. A small one so no damn way they are in balance.


Now I'm not saying it's fixed because it's done this shit before went away for a test drive then came back. Well not sell went away but got better. But how would the uppers cause a shake and vib

 

What upper control arm bolts are you referring to? Stock UCAs? Are you torquing to spec? And yes, it is actually possible that your tires are balanced with only one clip on weight on each wheel. I'm guessing there are probably sticky weights on inside as well. And haven't you had them balanced multiple times now? Aren't you at the point where you can officially rule out OOB as an issue, especially since you've have multiple different sets of tires rebalanced at different shops and issue still remains?

 

Make sure the shop uses the Haweka adapter. Even a road force balance won't work well without it.

 

Are you talking about the bolts that go through the UCA at the frame or the ball joint nut that holds the splindle to the UCA?

Either way, those loose is no good and can/will cause vibe issues.

Bolts are not tight, the part moves, shakes, shimmy's.

 

Looks like you found your problem! Loose UCAs can cause SERIOUS vibration issues at speed. While you may have a SMALL bit of imbalance with a tire, that tiny bit gets amplified BIG TIME when a suspension part is not torqued properly.

 

Yes. The upper control arm bolts where the uca attaches to the frame were loose. I'm about to go back and drive it across town and see if will shake or shimmy like before again.

 

Not when every time i take it to a shop the tires are out of balance. By anywhere from 1/2 oz to full oz's. And no they weren't sticky weights they are one clip on weight on the outside of each wheel inner side.

 

Well no dice still just as bad as it was before

 

Im racking my brain trying to figure it out.

 

^this. or hit up a friend/fellow TW member to borrow theirs. and if it's really a big issue then go back to the working 265/75 and have a smooth ride again. no use wasting more money than it would cost to keep figuring shit out

 

No factory rims I sold them. And unless someone around here has aftermarket wheels it won't work. I have a spindle lift and factory wheels wont clear the spindle without a spacer and that puts a whole other part into the equation of it

 

Anyone got anything else to check. I'm out of options now other than trading it in

 

should my tie rods be this loose. Haven't checked the pass side yet but this is truck off and just stationary

http://youtu.be/L3u4D0fkes8

 

it's disconnected, it will be loose

it's made to move around with the suspension. to test it bolt it back up and see if there is any play side-to-side. but it sounds like you've already checked that from a previous post

 

Yep. But looking at other videos on YouTube it seems like it should be a lot tighter. Only other thing I can think of is steering rack itself has started to go. But that is an expensive guess at 400+ for a reman with core charge then labor to put it in. That is not something I trust my shade tree mechanics to

 

Finally finally finally got somewhere to listen to what has been done and what it is doing and has spent all day since 9 checking everything. Nothing broke or loose so they are pointing towards the wheels being bad and are currently taking them off the truck and the tires off of the wheels to spin each wheel for a slight bend or crack or anything. They said if that doesn't work then they are going to old school it to see if inner and outer weights will stop it from being out of balance.

 

Not needed if the hub interfaces with the wheel hubcentrically, as it is here.

Yes, -1.5 caster is bad and can cause the steering to wonder. Since you have a spindle lift (i.e. stock geometry), +2 caster should be achieveable. Did the tech give you a printout or just told you verbally?

 

Printout. But that was two or three alignments ago

 

There should be a weight on both the inside and outside typically (Depending on the balance characteristics of course)

There are two types of balancing in general (Other than Roadforce) and those are Static and Dynamic. Static balance installs only 1 weight on the inside edge of the rim only. This simply balances the tire based on weight. Commonly it is called "bubble balancing" a tire. Dynamic balancing typically will result in two weights on the rim, one on the inside, and one on the outside. THIS form of balancing is called dynamic because it is designed to offset an actual VIBRATION that is being induced by an imbalance in the assembly (tire and wheel). Roadforce balancing (mentioned several times here) Actually requires a special balance machine that does Roadforce. If you look at the picture below, you will see a drum that is about 8-10 inches in diameter.



During Roadforce measuring the machine moves this drum against the tire and applies in the area of 1000-2000 lbs of force on the tire. This is done to simulate the tire actually being installed on the vehicle. At this point the machine will spin the tire at a lower speed than normal balancing. The drum and arm assembly have a sensor built in which will measure the "Force" that the tire places against the drum as it rotates. The computer can then determine if there are any abnormal spots on the tire, and will take this into account when it pulls the drum back, and performs the high-speed spin balance.

WHY am I mentioning all of this? Because with the situation you are describing, the ONLY possible way to get your tires balanced in a situation like this, is to do a full Roadforce balance. If the place does not have a CALIBRATED machine, then they won't be able to help you.

 

Supposedly the wheels and tires were road force balanced St discount tire. Well the guy at the new shop said he didn't want to but felt it was the best course of action for me for him to put clip on Weights on both inside and outside of the wheel. Keep in mind I have black aftermarket wheels. I have been. Told a bunch not possible. But I don't know what else to do. He said he drove it and night and day difference. But now have silver weights on the outside of my wheels. I guess this is the price I pay to have my truck setup how I want it.