Are your front hubs locked instead of in free? Did you keep the drive shaft in the same orientation while installing the ujoints? Did you smack the ujoints good after installing to free them up?
The taps are to relieve the tension that causes the joint to bind that is caused by the friction of installing it. The yoke is usually a little distorted because of pushing the caps in. A little shock with a hammer tap helps It spring back to shape.Usually a good tap with a hammer, not too aggresive, on the yolk a few times in different spots while moving the joints around. If you put the joint in on the shaft say on a bench, and try to rotate it, its very stiff initially. Just need to get everything set and get the needles rolling.
From the last time that I worked in a Good Year shop in 2007, just about all of the tires were out of round compared to the ones that we put on when I worked at the first tire shop in 1994. We would have sent those all back. Like everything else, the quality of tires has suffered greatly compared to how they used to be. If it's really bad, there won't be a lot that can be done about it. One trick that can be tried if it's not badly out of round, break the tire beads loose, don't dismount the tire, and turn the tire around the rim 180*. Sometimes that helps if the heavy spot on the tire and the rim happen to be close to the same place. That's something else that we did at the first tire store I worked at but not the Good Year store. They would just keep putting on weights there.I’m not sure if it’s worn uneven or actually out of round some how. It would be the first time I’ve ever seen that.
From the last time that I worked in a Good Year shop in 2007, just about all of the tires were out of round compared to the ones that we put on when I worked at the first tire shop in 1994. We would have sent those all back. Like everything else, the quality of tires has suffered greatly compared to how they used to be. If it's really bad, there won't be a lot that can be done about it. One trick that can be tried if it's not badly out of round, break the tire beads loose, don't dismount the tire, and turn the tire around the rim 180*. Sometimes that helps if the heavy spot on the tire and the rim happen to be close to the same place. That's something else that we did at the first tire store I worked at but not the Good Year store. They would just keep putting on weights there.
Yep this was in '06 and most of '07. I HATED that job. You can see the bottom of the tire while it's spinning with the hood down. Those yellow and red dots are called balance dots. Nobody else in that Good Year store had seen them, heard of them, or knew how to use them other than me. Not tires have them and not tires with balance dots have red ones. You line the yellow ones up with the valve stem and it takes less weight to balance the tires that way. they do work because when I mounted the current tires on my truck, it had been so long since I had seen tires with them that I forgot which one to line up so I lined up the red dots with the valve stem. They were so out of balance that even the balance beads in the tires could smooth out the vibrations. I eventually had to break the tires back down, rotate them to line up the yellow dots, and then air them back up. It made a HUGE difference in how the truck rides.Interesting, I worked in a Firestone shop around the same time (2006 I think) and we did the same thing. The balancer had a hood that had to be down to spin the wheel, so I never really watched how it looked while spinning, but once in a while I'd have one that either called for an asinine amount of weight or would call for more weight each time it was rechecked after putting weights on. I'd take those tires off and rotate 180* but I always figured it just had a heavy spot. We were always told to line up the valve stem with the 'heavy' mark on the tire. It was usually a little yellow circle on the sidewall. Not sure if that really matters, but seems when I have tires put on they are never lined up.