on my way to school this morning i had went to pick up my friend and the truck had been making howling noises for quite some time now and when i left my friends house it was fine but from his house to school is like 5 miles. and by the time that i got to school it was making a repetative whooshing noise from each tire Any ideas? by the was its a 2wd

 

Might be wheel bearings or ball joints, everybody thinks they sound a bit different.

Jack up the offending tire and grab it at 12 and 6 o'clock and give a few rocking tugs back and forth. If it wiggles there, it could be ball joints.

Then grab it at 3 and 9 o'clock and tug it back and forth. If there's play there, you can start thinking wheel bearings.


Wheel bearings are easy to replace if you have a breaker bar, the correct sized socket for the large bearing nut, and a torque wrench to 185ft/lbs. The bearing nut is not reusable on the 2wd, it has a nylock nylon washer that locks it in place when you tighten it up and shreds when you remove it. They aren't a terrible price at the dealership though, but still more than you should have to pay for a nut.

You also need to know if you have an ABS system to buy the correct wheel hub (what the bearings are in). If you remove the wheel and see teeth on the wheel hub and a rectangular protrusion with a bunch of metal shavings stuck to it, you have ABS.
Might also take it to a tire shop and make sure you don't have a broken radial belt. They can throw it in the balancer and if it starts making noise, you know its the tire and not the truck.

 

i replaced all four ball joints and wheel bearings 4 months ago so....

 

The 95 has regular wheel bearings not hub assembly type right? Did you tighten the nuts properly?

 

sorry forgot to mention this is my other dodge truck its a 98 ram 1500 5.2l 2wd and it has spindles with inner and outter wheel bearings. i know for sure ill be able to figure out what the problem is when i limp home with it and tear it apart. but im sitting in schhol 12th grade(wahoo last year!) and i would like to know if anybody know for sure or has had it happen to them. im mechanincally inclined i replaced the transmission on the 95 2500 myself so im confident

 

Yea, well ok. So did the nuts get tightened/adjusted properly.

 

ok heres the verdict. inner bearing on the driver side was shredded and yes you can reuse the nut that threads on the spindle what i do is tighten the nut down hard then back it off half a crown. regreased the other side as well

 

I know you can reuse the nut on that setup, as it is a castle nut with a cotter pin. As far as the tightening procedure goes. You don't just tighten the nut and back it off, you need to spin the wheel so the bearing can seat while you slowly tighten the nut to the specified torque(which I forget), then you back it off.