New tires, truck shudders at 35MPH

[Duke]

Got 5 new ****** tires today. I had one new one that was on the truck when I bought it. the rest were a mixed bag of lousy tires, so I replaced the 5 mixed tires with 5 new ones that match the one good tire I had.

Anyway, got 2 new ones on the front and the balanced them with "equal". Set off on my way home and at around 35-40, there's a wobbling or shuddering in the suspension. The steering wheel is fine, no shaking, nothing. Alignment is great, too.

Drove truck back to tire dealer, we jacked it up, and turned all 6 wheels. Everything looks really straight. All we found was an old wheel weight on one of the fronts. Thinking that was the answer, we took the old wheel weight off, and I hit the road again.

Still shudders at ~35-40 mph.

Think the equal powder may have clumped-up inside one of the front tires? Have I not waited long enough for the equal to start working? I drove it ~30 miles.

It's not a bad shudder, but it wasn't there with my old crappy, mismatched tires.

 

[timntools]

I've never tried the equal trick, but if they were new tires, why would you want to put it in there. didn't they balance them when you bought them?

 

[Duke]

The equal is what they use to balance the tires. IOW, they aren't spin balanced, like little truck tires. The equal powder actually balances the tire as it rotates.

Problem is, sometimes equal can clump-up from moisture inside the tire or stick to the tire seating lube they put on the tires for ease of mounting. That scenario doesn't seem to likely.

 

[Pacific]

What brand of tires are they ?

Is your truck hub or stud pilot wheels ?

What you should do is jack the front of the truck up one side at a time then take a framing square or a sledge hammer standing on its head works then clamp a pointer on it.

What you want to do is set your upright object so its close to the sidewall of the tire not touching leave 1/2 inch of space. Spin the tire and see if the gap changes between your upright and the sidewall. If its significant then your have a bent wheel or out of whack tire.

I assume you are sticking with the 11R-22.5 steers for now ?

Non of the gravel trucks I work with have spun balanced tires they are mounted and off they go. The trucks I work with have 315/80-22.5 or 385/65-22.5 or 425/65-22.5 steers with 11R-22.5 or 11R-24.5 drives.

I would run them for a week or two see if they break in if nothing improves then you will have to investigate further. If it didn't do it before then I assume its the current tires you bought.

A set of five virgins must have cost you a good chunk of change I guess you must of paid atleast 250 each for the tires.

 

[Duke]

Originally posted by Pacific
What brand of tires are they ?

Is your truck hub or stud pilot wheels ?

What you should do is jack the front of the truck up one side at a time then take a framing square or a sledge hammer standing on its head works then clamp a pointer on it.

What you want to do is set your upright object so its close to the sidewall of the tire not touching leave 1/2 inch of space. Spin the tire and see if the gap changes between your upright and the sidewall. If its significant then your have a bent wheel or out of whack tire.

I assume you are sticking with the 11R-22.5 steers for now ?

Non of the gravel trucks I work with have spun balanced tires they are mounted and off they go. The trucks I work with have 315/80-22.5 or 385/65-22.5 or 425/65-22.5 steers with 11R-22.5 or 11R-24.5 drives.

I would run them for a week or two see if they break in if nothing improves then you will have to investigate further. If it didn't do it before then I assume its the current tires you bought.

A set of five virgins must have cost you a good chunk of change I guess you must of paid atleast 250 each for the tires.

They're Toyo M610-ZL's. From what I hear, very good tires. Excellent, deep lug tread. We already jacked up all 4 corners and checked for any change in gap or wobbling. Everything looks great there.

 

[ISurvivedNMU]

I was just at suspension maxx today doing a chevy lift, and a guy came in with 38 super swampers.. Long story short, no one could get them balanced and the truck vibrated like it was coming apart... They put the tire on a "tire truer" and shaved the tire round.. It was significantly off... put it on the balance machine and 3 oz later it was like a new tire.. I have never seen that before today, but I was told by the owner that more and more tires today are not round..

Could defiantley be the prolem...

ON EDIT: Duke looks like we posted at the same time and this is not the case...

 

[Pacific]

Those are decent looking tires not super aggressive but a good all postion tire. The viberation you are feeling might be the the square open shoulders on the tires. Like I said run them for a week or two and see if it improves.

I can't see why you are having problems Toyos I can see you having problems if they were Double Coin.

 

[Duke]

Just got back from another 20 miles of driving. This really gettin weird now.
The first 10 miles it seemed like theproblem went away. I stopped at a friend's place for about 10 minutes.

Then I hit the road and the shudder came back.

I wonder if it's something not related to the tires, something that was either triggered by the tire work today, or happened at the same time, purely by coincidence.

The thing that's makes me thing it isn't the tires is the fact that the steering wheel doesn't shake in my hand. It's like the truck is wobbling.

 

[dondiesel444]

here's a shot in the dark, but are all the lugnuts tight??

 

[Duke]

I'm pretty sure they are.

I watched the whole installation. The only minor problem I saw was that on the drivers side front wheel, they had trouble getting 2 of the lugs to thread. Of course they had the huge air lug wrenches, and when I saw them bog-down on 2 leugs, I knew they were reluctant to tighten, but that was only 2 of them, and they did seem to get them tight.

Besides, if they were loose, when we checked the tires, we jacked them up and rotated them to make sure they were spinning true, with no wobbling.

It's got to be something simple. My guess is that it's the equal in the fronts is clumped up.

Is there any possibility the bags or 1 of the bags hasn't broken open yet?

 

[Pacific]

Yikes I don't like that if 2 of the lug nuts were tough to go on you will never get them loose by hand. If they were using 3/4 of 1" drive impact and its powering out it sounds like the studs are stripped or the nuts have been cross threaded.

Is the highways you travel on grooved it could be the lugs on the tires grabbing the grooves or the tires are squirmy.

What PSI are you running in the tires it should be around 100psi or what ever the spec's say on the door post.

 

[Duke]

Pacific,

I know the feeling you're referring to. Kind of a new-tire, spongy feeling, and it's not that. I can't say it's the roads because the tires I removed were similar tread patterns (except 1 rear tire was a steer tire).

It's a feeling of something being either out of balance, or out of round. It's not out of round since we checked all 4 corners for roundness.

105lb in the tires. I guess I'll have to run it back down again and have the equal removed, or switch two of the rears up to the front to see if that solves the problem.
I'm gonna look for any other wheel weights that still might be on the inside of one of the front rims today.

These problems almost always end up being something really simple that was overlooked.

 

[Whit]

This is agrivating, stupid idea here but is your tread holding rocks in it, I have this problem with my 19.5's and found that at 75 mph the rocks will fly outa there and balance right out again. ???

 

[dondiesel444]

Duke, I agree that you should put two of the rear tires up front and see if that makes any difference. then at least you can narrow it down a little bit. did they put equal in all the tires or just the 2 they put on the front??

 

[Duke]

Just the 2 front tires have equal.

I wonder if I shouldn't just bite the bullet and have a 6 spin balanced anyway?

It's gonna cost me liek $100 bucks, but then I can find out what's going on.