Swapped tire but didn’t change anything for the vibration. I also tried to move anything and see if it was loose as recommended but everything seemed stiff with no wiggle.

im Going to stop by a tire shop tomorrow and see if they can check the wheel
balance and find anything I can’t.

i watched a couple ball joint replacement videos and they said that you can’t really tell if it’s bad unless you unhook it and wiggle the post up and down. Is this true?

hopefully the tire shop finds something simple like weights not being proper or something the plus side of throwing a bunch of new parts at my truck is that well, it has a bunch of new parts LoL

 

Well if you pulled that wheel off the truck and the vibration was identical to before, it's unlikely that it's the wheel balance either (unless it's coming from a different wheel than the one you removed).

I have changed ball joints on multiple vehicles (including 2 2nd gen rams) and I could always identify a failed ball joint very quickly and easily with the pry bar. There is a notable slop between the knuckle and the axle housing where the ball joint sits. The reason for this is that the ball joint has a tapered fit into the knuckle, so it's very very tightly on the knuckle. What they are observing by wiggling the post is the same thing we are observing by simply prying on the knuckle. The only situation in which the post could move independent of the knuckle would be one where the knuckle slid off the ball joint...which would require the nut have backed off...which would require the cotter key to have failed first...and you'd still be able to pry on the knuckle and see slop.

Wish I had more advice, without being able to see it with my eyes, I'm not sure what you've got going on.


Edit: You said you replaced the passenger side front axle u joint, did you pry on the driver side to check it?

 

interesting, ok I’ll go look again. When you say pry on the drivers side we’re you talking about prying one the ujoint or the ball joint? I was able to wiggle the ujoint with my hand before I replaced the wheel bearing after changing it it has zero wiggle.

ill try and see if I can make anything move around with the pro bar again maybe I was trying the right angles...

 

Just pry on the ball joints both up and down.

Use a small pry bar to check that driver side u joint too. I bet if you haven't checked it that that's your problem. Just like anything else, any movement is a fail.

 

Everything was covered here. What I do to check ball joints is just the axle up and leave the tire on (it's weight). Grab the tire at 12 and 6 and push on one pull on the other. Then reverse it. If you have any movement it's a ball joint. Also stick something under the tire and pry up (pushing the pry bar down) and movement it's a ball joint. Grabbing at 3 & 9 will check tie rods

 

ok so I MAY have found it. I included a video. I’m assuming these shouldn’t be moving like this... I’ve included 2 pictures and I uploaded a couple videos to YouTube



These are tie rods right?

 

Yeah, that movement is pretty normal. Joints gotta pivot when turning, and/or compressing the suspension. Try bouncing the passenger front corner of the truck. When you stop, it should stop as well. If it bounces more than twice after you stop, shocks are shot.

Might try jacking up the front, and turning the wheels a bit, then try and spin the tires. See if anything doesn't feel quite right. (binding u-joint, warped rotors, etc.)

 

ok I’ll try that next. I did the crowbar under the tire test here’s the result the passenger side has noticeably more play than when I do this to the driver side...

 

Holy smokes, that is a LOT of movement...... Can you see where it's coming from??

 

im going to put my camera on the inside to see cause I’m doing this by myself and then I’ll do one of the driver side for comparison