High Speed Braking Vibration - Steering Gear?

When braking at highway speeds I'm getting a serious vibration. However, it's not coming from the brake pedal, just the front of the truck.

I eased on the E brake at speed to see if it may be the rear brakes, no dice!

Pulled off the front wheels and checked the rotors and brakes, they are in very good condition. No warpage, grooves etc.

However....

I shook the disk from side to side while it was mounted on the truck and I'm getting a decent ammount of movement from the steering gear and steering knuckle.

I grabbed the tie rods next and twisted them side to side and there is a major ammount of movement in both.

Is all that movement normal?

If not, what is the fix and how much will it run for parts?

Thanks in advance.

 

Do this again (shaking) and watch the entire rack&pinion. Does the entire rack move? It could be your steering rack bushings.
http://www.lieblweb.com/steeringbush.html

Could be your balljoints

Any vibration in a truck is NOT normal. So - if you're feeling it, there's a problem somewhere. Balljoints, bearings, & bushings should not have any (or obviously noticable) movement outside of what they are designed to do.

You just have to narrow it down to what it could be. Steering rack bushings are known to go bad (get sloppy) on the 1st gen trucks. Although, it probably won't totally fix your vibration issue....... it's a good (and cheap & easy) maintenance item to take care of. Sounds like you might have few things going bad at the same time.

 

A braking vibe is warped rotors 99% of the time. Warped rotors are not somthing you are gonna see until you chuch the disk up on a lathe. .