BEASTY

Hello All:


I am a brand new Ford owner. Never had one in my life and I just picked up an 09 Platinum SCrew with 50k miles. It has a 4" level lift with 35x12.5x20 tires. It is pristine inside and out, but....I have a wicked vibration/bounce that I think is coming from the back end as I do not feel it in the steering. It starts at about 30-40 mph and at highway speeds it feels like your molars will fall out. Mechanic has looked it over a couple times and driven it as well. Ruled out drive line and u-joints. Rear shocks were shot so I replaced those and the front struts with new springs also.


I have had many Chevy/GMC trucks so I am not a novice, but never a Ford and never a lifted rig. Finally, went this direction 1) needed the cab room for the munchkins and 2) liked the look and options at the price point I was shopping.


So. I will have new wheels and tires this week. The Mickey Thompsons currently on the stock rims are badly cupped with a flat spot or two thrown in. Wife hates the truck due to the vibration (and the lift, but that's what those fancy retractable running boards are for...).


I'm thinking the tires are the main culprit. I will have them in and then immediately go for an alignment (it runs super straight and true now, but better safe than sorry).


Any suggestions or insight would be helpful.

Thanks to reading here since I bought this beauty, she now has the Gotts mod, SCT X4 tuner (canned tune), replaced the crappy stock exhaust manifolds with short tube headers and Magnaflow 3" exhaust (didn't wanna mess with the cats and o2 sensors so didn't go long tube).


Thanks


Beasty

Martian

This will solve a lot of troubleshooting questions:
You have either a level OR a lift. Which? Guessing it's the lift, but you never can be sure on this forum.

BEASTY

Sorry. It's a lift. 4" in total.

Martian

Also thinking tires / wheels. I'm curious to know how it feels once you get it back. That aside, I wonder if your parking brake could be improperly adjusted as well.

BEASTY

Hmmm. I will need to look that up and see if that is the case. I will advise once I get the new wheels on. If that doesn't fix it then I'm in deep doo doo with the wife after spending all that $$$$ on tires/rims to "fix" the problem. I needed tires regardless, I explained the new rims as a fix to remedy any possible bent ones. Hahaha.

Martian

It's a great troubleshooting step, I agree, even though it does happen to make the truck look better (or it can, anyway). It may not solve this problem, but it will likely solve others before they occur.

BEASTY

ok. Tested the parking brake and it is weak at best. So all new pads and parts for the e-brake ordered as well as new drilled and slotted rotors for the rear (will do front ones next, but so much I wanna do and so little $$)

Martian

Whoa. You didn't do the troubleshooting we were alluding to at all. I was suggesting you remove the parking brake, not just test its effectiveness. Kinda jumped the gun there... if you can cancel the order, btw, wouldn't be an awful idea. The "drilled and slotted" argument has been had here multiple times. There's no significant benefit to us for drilled and slotted vs. solid for our trucks, the most common comparison being that F1 cars use solid rotors and theirs get far hotter than ours do.

BEASTY

My error. What troubleshooting was referenced?

Martian

None, we hadn't gotten that far yet. I wanted to hear more of your thoughts before writing a full description. Anyway the next step would've been to pull the rotors off and remove the parking brake shoes entirely and then see how a drive goes after that. I don't know if your gen is the same as mine with the brake shoes, but I can't imagine them being too horribly different from such a basic part. The issue with mine was the scissor lever actuator had rusted solid, not allowing the shoes to retract, and the previous owner (or mechanic) had improperly adjusted the star wheel to compensate for it. It didn't work. The result was a stuck brake that would brush the inside of the rotor's drum and cause bouncing / vibration at highway speeds.