BLACKF150FX4

I'm at a stop sign here with this little mod and could really use some help / advice. I bought this 2006 F150 FX4 locally, used with about 89K on the clock. It came with some American Racing chromies and I liked them at first but when I decided I wasn't going to be able to run the rubber much longer I looked at doing a complete wheel / tire swap. The BFG's on there were the TA/KM's, and while they looked cool, they were loud and made the truck ride like a shopping cart. With winter coming up I knew it was time for another tire choice.





I looked at a couple different wheels before finally settling on Fuel Revolver's in 18" flavor. I made the mistake of buying them from 4wheelonline.com and it took the better part of 6 weeks to get the whole debacle they created worked out. I don't want to get into it too deeply but I ended up buying the correctly sized 4th wheel from another vendor who wasn't sniffing glue and brain damaged. Word to the wise...DO NOT ORDER FROM THESE MONKEY'S, YOU WILL REGRET IT! After all the BS I finally got my new Goodyear Duratrac's (same size as the BFG's 285/70/17 but run a little bigger) mounted and away I drove. The road noise and ride were much better but once I got on the thruway, that's when I noticed some shake. Not death wobble bad but annoying from 55-65,70 mph.





So let me condense this down and save some time.

1. Took back to my buddy's shop and rebalanced, traditional balancer. No Change.
2. He took them to have them road force balanced at a friend's shop. No change.
3. I took them to a local tire shop who only does tires. Road force balanced again. Balanced out pretty good with readout sheet and all. No change.
4. Had varying degree of change with increased tire pressure but nothing major.
5. Decided I needed hubcentric rings even though most of the data I've found on the interweb says these are lug-centric.
6. Found a set on ebay but they were 87.0 mm / 108.0 mm (they needed to be 87.0 / 106.4 but 108.0 was the closest I could find). I figured they might be a little "snug" but turns out that little difference was a lot and no workie.

Rings are my last option to solve this. I did a pretty good amount of searching with no luck. My question is this. The Ford 87.0 mm hub is pretty common and I would think there's a lot of these wheels out there, so why can't I seem to find a proper ring?

I don't have any other explanation that makes sense in my mind. Wheels: New so can't (shouldn't be bent), Tires: balanced, new rubber. What else is there?





Any insight you can offer would be appreciated. I don't have any more tricks or ideas and I don't think I can go on with this, especially being the tires are brand new. I just want a smooth ride back again. Thanks in advance.

PS-Just in case anyone is considering buying these wheels, the holes are very "narrow" and impact sockets will not fit, standard chromies will but are close.

RLXXI

Just replaced all my wheels and tires and used dyna beads to balance them, smooth as silk up to 70mph, didn't take it up any faster due to local speed limits but the way dyna beads dynamically keep the tires balanced really didn't need to.

I use them in my motorcycle as well and with just as good results.
http://www.innovativebalancing.com/index.php
.

BLACKF150FX4

Investigating....

win308s2

Bought bigger tires had trouble with vibration for a while. After trying a few things, ended up saying **** it and doing balancing beads. They are way better. No need to balance anymore, only rotate the tires every now and then.

AricsFX

iTrader: (3)

your missing the little plastic pieces that go between the hubs and rims

BLACKF150FX4

Lemme look for the printout of the road force balance but if that checks out then the shake is due to the wheel mounted off center... yes?

BLACKF150FX4

Yeah, hubcentric rings. Need a source.

KPT2

Yes that's definitely your problem. You've ruled everything else out.

BLACKF150FX4

OK, something else that just occurred to me. I had noticed a mild "clunk" when going over uneven surfaces. I also noticed a friend of mine had bought an 06 F150 and when I looked at his upper control arm / ball joint, I noticed the angle of the ball joint (with his truck being stock and non-lifted) was a lot less "severe" than mine (being leveled or lifted or however you want to term it.

Let's ask this question. Whether I mentioned it previously or not, it seems like the shake issue I have seems to vary in severity / frequency, sometimes even throughout the course of the same day. Could I have worn upper (and / or lower) ball joints? Could this actually be another possible cause of my problem? Based on what I've seen on youtube, it appears replacement of the upper joint is a complete replacement of the arm and joint.

BLACKF150FX4

Little update to this thread. Got a little busy with work and the weather here and didn't get much time to figure this out. Long story short, I upgraded my upper control arms to aftermarket but only had a chance to do the drivers side in the fall. Had a short list of general maintenance to be done so I made an appointment with my mechanic to handle them all at once. Figured I'd have him to the passenger side while he was at it. Guess what? As of day 5, no more wheel shake. This would be the second vehicle I've owned that I thought had balancing issues and it turned out to be the upper control arm.