The vibration is back. Damn

[ARK Ranger]

When I got my new 2013 Z522 and Ford F150 I had a small vibration around 65 mph. say 80% of the time it was there. Spent a fortune and even Ranger looked and balanced the tires on truck and Boat. Sometimes if your on the right road it seem not to be there. Sometimes the head of my TM vibrates when you feel the vibration. Went on trip and had a blow out this winter on the trailer. When I put the spare on I did not feel the vibration going home. I thought it was the bad tire but I did try swapping the spare and all tires back in the beginning. Just bought another set of Carlisle tires(5) and put on trailer. Same tires that were on before. Carlisle helped me with the blown out tire. Now! the damn thing does the same thing maybe a little worse than before. Ive tried everything except that new tire machine that they say will find out or round(?) Some say it will some don't. It is very expensive to do 9 tires looking for something you might not find. Vibration was the same 65 MPH, not always there on some roads, and the TM head would shake bad. Help.
At 60 MPH and under and 70 to 75 it runs very smooth.

[bloodman]

What makes you think it ain't the truck?

[tomustang]

Initial testing should be done. Drive the Trailer with another vehicle and see if that's the problem. Drive the Truck with another trailer and see if that's the problem. Then you move on

[Spinnerb8]

When my trolling motor head was bouncing line that I had a blowout soon after on my trailer. New tire and no more vibration

[igs65]

Probably a dumb question but have your checked your hubs to make sure the bearings are snug on each?

[ARK Ranger]

Keep coming. All good things before I start on the tires. Did a lot of this back 3 years ago. Talked with Ford then too.

[Rip Bass]

Well,all new tires on the trailer basically eliminates the trailer tires. Maybe one of the trailer wheels is bent,should be easy to check. Jack up each tire and spin slowly. After that,it would just about have to be the truck. Get those tires and wheels checked. Do you have the hitch receiver mounted at the correct height?If not,it can cause the trailer to do some funky things.

[375VTROCKET]

Checked to see if the tires are slipping on the rim? Sometimes the mixture of the bead lube (snot) is not weakened enough by the water added and can absolutely cause a tire to slip on the rim after hard braking or fast acceleration. Make a paint mark on the rim where the weight is (EACH END OF THE WEIGHT) and one on the center of the weight extending onto the tire. Drive it/pill it like normal and see if it is getting out of balance. This will work for the truck and the trailer if it has brakes.

Info about truing the tires: You will loose a good amout of tread by doing this--I would suggest have a radial runout done on your tires. Do a search to see what is the acceptable tolerance of runout for the tires are. A radial runout will show the high spots and low spots of a tire and will also show if the tread is molded to/on the center of the casing. Hope some of this helps to elimanate your problem.

[fishone]

I had a same problem on a Triton trailer. One bad tire and one bent rim was causing the problems. It came that way from the factory.

[1BADAIR]

Road force machine checks the wheel and the tire both. If an assembly tests out of spec it then measures the wheel. Then it has you mark the hi:lol spot of the wheel and tire to see if rotating the tire on the wheel and "matching" them will bring the assembly into spec. Another thing we used to do was "on car" balancing. Balanced the hub, rotor , tire and all

[bigrg]

Another thing to check is the disc brakes on the trailer, I had one a few years back that caliper was sticking and would drag just enough to cause a vibration at highway speed.

[Dball84]

Bigrg I had the same thing happen on a truck I worked on. The brake caliper was stuck and it made that tire feel like it was going to bounce off of the ground while driving. It was a horrible vibration. New caliper and she smoothed right out.

[CT20]

Had the same issue. Put 2 new Carlisle tires on and thought it was better but it came back. Local tire shop road forced balanced all 4 of the tires and they were all off the charts bad. Had them put on 4 new Goodyears and paid $10 a tire for the difference. Now it is as smooth as can be. Hope this helps. Mine was on a 2014 Z521C.

[ARK Ranger]

Probably a dumb question but have your checked your hubs to make sure the bearings are snug on each?

When it happened first time i tried different truck and other things. The it does not seem to happen all the time comes into the picture. I pulled the boat to Ranger. The two guys in the trailer shop worked with me and checked it out and even balanced a couple of tires. We then drove around and got to all speeds between 40 to 75 and it seemed to be gone. On the way back home I noticed it again after a 3 day fishing trip to Bull. Someone above said something about brakes sticking. This might be a reason for not always there. How do I check this out ?

[RTex]

When it happened first time i tried different truck and other things. The it does not seem to happen all the time comes into the picture. I pulled the boat to Ranger. The two guys in the trailer shop worked with me and checked it out and even balanced a couple of tires. We then drove around and got to all speeds between 40 to 75 and it seemed to be gone. On the way back home I noticed it again after a 3 day fishing trip to Bull. Someone above said something about brakes sticking. This might be a reason for not always there. How do I check this out ?

get rid of the ford and change out the trailer tires - kidding but did you say yall have towed the ranger behind other vehicles and still have a problem?

You probably don’t need to replace the spare but I’d probably start with the trailer tires and at least get them balanced to see if it gets better.

If you don’t feel it in the truck when not towing, that lessens the odds that it’s the truck tires doing it..

There is an outside chance that the truck driveline has this slight vibration under a load, but eliminating the tires as the issue would be the first thing to do

[ARK Ranger]

[QUOTE=RTex;7374220]get rid of the ford and change out the trailer tires - kidding but did you say yall have towed the ranger behind other vehicles and still have a problem?

You probably don’t need to replace the spare but I’d probably start with the trailer tires and at least get them balanced to see if it gets better.
I did all that the first time. Because it is not always there( maybe road conditions or I dont know) those type test did not seem to work in the long run. The truck runs great and passes all the Chevys and Rams(lol) by itself. This last week end on the way home I tried powering my way thru 65 to see what happened. At first it worked and i said truck problem. Then just a few miles later that did not work. I think Jesus may be paying me back a little for my younger years.

[SmlRanger]

prolly a bent wheel

[RTex]

maybe even tow a different trailer to see if you can get the same issue too? again, a longshot but if a transmission is acting up with a load and not acting up on a normal drive, you might not know it .

get rid of the ford and change out the trailer tires - kidding but did you say yall have towed the ranger behind other vehicles and still have a problem?

You probably don’t need to replace the spare but I’d probably start with the trailer tires and at least get them balanced to see if it gets better.
I did all that the first time. Because it is not always there( maybe road conditions or I dont know) those type test did not seem to work in the long run. The truck runs great and passes all the Chevys and Rams(lol) by itself. This last week end on the way home I tried powering my way thru 65 to see what happened. At first it worked and i said truck problem. Then just a few miles later that did not work. I think Jesus may be paying me back a little for my younger years.

[ARK Ranger]

How do I check for a sticking brake caliper on the boat trailer?

[jazzman39]

How do I check for a sticking brake caliper on the boat trailer?

If the caliper is causing the brake pad to drag on the rotor it will generate quite a bit of heat. Do yourself a favor and stay away from Carlisle tires, they are crap. That is what came on my trailer from Ranger and they lasted less than 3 years. I maintain tire pressures, balancing and rotation religiously and the Carlisle tires had all kinds of crazy wear patterns between the 4 of them. I would not run Carlisle tires on a bicycle. I went with Maxxis and I love them. The difference between the Maxxis and Carlisle tires is like the difference between a Volkswagen and a Ferrari.