Vibration at 70 mph Ranger when towing

[CrappieMaster24]

 

Feel your wheel hubs (carefully),. If one or both is hotter than hell then you have a brake dragging.

Or bad berrings  

[Nitroman]

A lot of good suggestions, always start with the most likely & obvious 1ST. Wheel & tire out of balance, bent wheel, belt in tire shifting, etc. One thing I did not see mentioned & a lot of folks don't know is that drive shafts are also balanced, ( VERY IMPORTANT ON ANY 4 X 4 ) if they throw a weight &  become unbalanced you will get a vibration. Crawl under your truck & look for a " CLEAN SPOT" ( THIS IS WHAT NORMALLY APPEARS AS THE WEIGHTS ARE INSTALLED WHEN THE DRIVE SHAFT IS NEW & CLEAN NOT AFTER THEY ARE RUSTED & DIRTY )  along the drive shaft. Find one & you may well have found your problem & it's off to the drive shaft shop we go.

[fishinwrench]

Drive shaft shop!   I actually need to find one of those.  I have a '99 Suburban with a mysterious vibration at certain speeds.  Nobody has ever been able to pinpoint it's source, so we just crank up the stereo and try to ignore it, assuming that eventually something will break....And then we'll know what to fix. 

I am NOT a car/truck mechanic.  Hate working on them.

[MOPanfisher]

Me too Wrench, I have a 2002 Toyota Corolla that has been my daughters, then my sons car, and is now mine again.  Won't die, but has a strange vibration at about 55 MPH, if going uphill, if you are going downhill it is smooth as butter.  Keep thinking that something will explode, break or fly off the little oil burning beast.  But at close to 40 MPG its hard to want it to die too. 

[Bill Babler]

I'm a little late on this, and usually don't know sickum about fixing anything, but I can remember when one of the Pro's and it might have been  Skeet Reese went to that big custom built Ford and said it would not even pull his Ranger without the boat jumping side to side, vibrating and wearing out the inside of the tires on both axels.

As has been mentioned many times on here, Ranger told him when towing you had to have the boat perfectly level or a slight nose down to hitch attitude on the trailer.  I  don't know if there is a picture of it somewhere but his ball extension looks like its 3 or 4 ft. long drop hitch coming down from that big truck, to make the boat level when towing. 

I believe it was Skeet, but it was for sure one of the Ranger Pro's running one of those big custom built Fords out of Alabama.  This was probably at least 7 to 10 yrs. ago, so I don't know how accurate it is now, but be sure your Ranger is more than level and slightly nose down.  It sounds like your problem,  Especially if you see any wear on the insides of the tires on both axels.

I just looked and it was Skeet's rig.  He now has a total custom built trailer and a custom built rear bumper for his F650.

Good Luck and let us know what it was.

[fowlthing]

Thanks again... my Ford 350 is stock, and only has 6000 miles on it....I will check the level again...My previous 2004  chevy truck I didn't notice any issues but might not have paid as much attention.

 

 

[vernon]

I can relate to Idle's comment regarding loose lug nuts.  Seems stupid simple but I had it happen one time after having new tires put on a trailer.

Easy to check and eliminate if nothing else.

[fishinwrench]

 

[Muddy Water]

 

Thanks again... my Ford 350 is stock, and only has 6000 miles on it....I will check the level again...My previous 2004  chevy truck I didn't notice any issues but might not have paid as much attention.

 

 

Yeah you usually wont have issues like that with a Chevy or GMC... 

[vernon]

 

Yeah you usually wont have issues like that with a Chevy or GMC... 

I decided to just wait that one out - glad I did!