Rough Ride After Sitting A Long Time

My truck sat in one place for almost two years, as I broke my back, and was unable to drive for like....ever.
When I finally got physically able to drive, I was able to replace fluids, and fire it right up. It runs great, w/ the exception of a slight "bump"...or not really a bump, but a slightly rough ride when driving. It feels like the tires are "bumpy"...theres no sway, or pull, or road wander...its just a slightly rough ride. Im wondering if the tires sitting for so long might have affected the balance, and if I should maybe have them rebalanced and rotated, BEFORE I take it in, and have someone tell me to have it aligned, replace the shocks/struts...etc...
The tires were low when I got it running, but a quick shot of air, and they all held air fine. I dont see any visible "flat spots" on the tires, or deformation of any kind...
Thoughts? Im trying to save some cash here..

Update: Ok, I I jacked it up, and checking for play in the front tires, I couldnt find any at all, just a bit of scraping from rust on the front discs. While under the vehicle though, I found two "boots" which Im assuming are lower balljoint boots, that were "ruptured", with little grease hanging out of whats left of the boots....would this cause a rough ride? Not sure if I can tackle this one...what ballpark at repair estimate am i looking at, and what terminology could I use so they dont think Im a "rube" and try to take me to the cleaners. Or do you think I could try this one myself?

 

The rough ride if more than likely from the tires being flat spotted from sitting in the same position for so long. They may or may not smooth out as you drive it some more and they heat cycle a few times.
I can't tell for sure by the picture, if it is the lower ball joints, they are in the lower control arms. They look like the uppers and you just replace the whole upper control arms.
Glad to hear you are back on your feet again. I have chronic back pain myself from degenerative disc disease, so I can kinda relate to what you went thru.

What year is your truck and is it 2wd or 4x4?

Oh yeah, welcome to the forum.

 

+1 on the tires, although you might not be able to visible see the flat spots they are more than likely there. When I had to store my truck for a year when I went on deployment a mechanic friend suggested that I store it up on jack stands to prevent the tires from getting flat spots.
As far as the ball joints being bad, they can and usually create a vibration you can feel in the steering, but it's a different feeling than bumpy tires. Ball joints were my first big repair I did on my Ram and it was a pain for a "rookie wrencher" like me. But when I had to swap out one upper balljoint a few months ago I did it much quicker, but every minute I was cursing at it and thinking about how much I'd be willing to pay a shop to do it, until I finished it myself.
Will the tires get better on themselves? That I'm not sure about, sitting two years is a long time, the sidewalls might be warped, but it's worth a shot to see if they will soften up, I guess it might also depend on the age and condition the tires are in.

There are some tire shops that have a special tire balancing machine that actually checks the tires themselves for flat spots or hard spots. I don't know what it's called but I saw it on Goss's Garage on MotorWeek once.

 

Is it the Hunter "Road Force" machine?

 

Yes it is! I just got on Motorweeks website and looked it up, Here's a quick quote from it.

"The Hunter GSP ninety-seven hundred road force balancer is pretty unique in that it has this big roller here. The roller comes up against the tire as the tire is spinning, it senses any imperfections in the tire, converts that into a digital reading, and tells you what the road force variation is. And there are set standards. So, if a tire has excessive road force you can balance it, from now till next year, and it's not going to roll smoothly on the road because of excessive road force. So, what do you do?
If you're having a balancing problem, new car, new tires, old car, or old tires, whatever, you want to look for a machine like this, a road force variation machine, and dial in the road force variation to get a smooth ride. I'm sure you'll be impressed."


And the full link http://www.motorweek.org/features/go..._balancing_act

 

Thanks for the welcome! Its a 2003, 2WD 1500....
How far/long do I need to drive it to heat up the tires sufficiently. Im kinda hesitant to get it on the highway, and really jack up the speed.

Update: So...I take it to "Goodyear" (only because its close, and I live in a tiny suburban bedroom community) to have them rotate and balance the tires, as thats the cheapest easist thing to do..and without even looking at the tires, they tell me I MUST replace all four tires..HAHA..yeah...uh...no... Then I made the huge mistake of telling them about the balljoints, and suddenly they tell me it MUST BE the balljoints, and then give me a $1054 estimate...uh...no....
I asked what they charge per hour labor, and they said 100$...I said "fine"...so the parts are in reality about $160 for the upper control arms, and lower balljoints....and your markup is probably about 100% on parts...so youre charging me about 7 hrs. labor to change out the upper and lower...does it REALLY take 7 freaking hours? Come on....
The tech said that yeah, it takes forever, cuz you cant just pop out the lower, and have to have a special "press" or something. I read the manual, and sure enough, it looks like Dodge is a real pain w/ these. You apparently cant just replace the uppers, w/o replacing the whole control arm. And on the lowers, you have to have some kind of way to press the lower ball joints into place.

If anyone has any brilliant ideas about how I can do this myself Im all ears. Im by no means a mechanic, but Im never afraid to try to learn....

Anywho...the rotation and balance had little to no effect,....and now unfortuneately, Im aware that my balljoints are exposed to the elements and dry as a bone, so im just going to obsess about it until I can get it fixed. What kind of damage am I doing to it driving it like it is...and is there anything I can do to lessen any damage to them until I can get them fixed (can I jerry rig em)...and lastly, how can I justify the cost of fixing them to the ol' lady when we're kinda broke, ie...what risk am I running by NOT fixing them...haha Am I damaging other components of the suspension? Will the undercarraige just fall out while Im driving.......

Oh yeah....just had a brainfart....

Not one person Ive talked to mentioned that I could try this....

Take the spare, and change out each tire on the truck one by one, and see if the problem might be due to one offending tire....haha.....its worth a shot...right? I mean...whos to say all four tires have terrible flat spots??? Could just be one? Maybe...? PLEEZ!!!...

Oh well..worth a shot.

 

thats too cool....I havent read the link yet, but youre saying not only can it diagnose tires, it can actually smooth out flat spots.??? What the heck?

 

You could try airing the tires up to their maximum pressure (listed on the sidewall) to see if it smooths out your ride (in case the problem is flat spotting).

 

veidtmeister
For your ball joint help, go on youtube. There are lots of videos and how to's about doing them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVluV...feature=relmfu

There's the correct way by using a portable press.....looks like a giant C clamp.....to redneck ways of popping out and re-installing lower ball joints.
As for running around with them exposed like that, well your just asking for trouble really. Without propper lubrication they will start to rub and wear and squeel like a pig. So much so that they might even snap and there goes your wheel hub. It's not exactly what you want on your steering to happen is it?? lol
Anywho......Hope this helps?

Al

 

Well I don't think that it can actually fix the flat (or hard) spots, but I think it allows the technician to be able to correctly install additional weights to counter-act the hard spots.

The ball joints are 2 of the main connecting points that secure the front wheels to the rest of the truck, tie rods are there for steering and your 2wd so you don't have CVs. The ball joints keep your tires vertically straight like this | | A bad enough ball joint could turn your tires into this / \ or \ / or if you were traveling fast enough if one breaks it could very well snap the other one off as well and then bye bye wheel. auto stores like auto zone and advance auto have tool rentals and you can rent the ball joint press that you need for the job, yes the lower is just the ball joint itself but the upper BJ is sold as the entire upper control arm. I bought mine from autozone and they have grease fittings, Moog is a very popular name when it comes to tie rods and ball joints as well, but a little more pricey.

Honestly as long as the truck sat, I'd be very, very surprised if only one tire went bad. You could try moving around the spare tire but I think that may be a waste of time. In Houston there are these used tire shops all over, I've never been to one of them but they are always in business, if there happens to be one near you maybe a cheap set of tires would be a temp fix until new tires can be budgeted for (speaking of that I need to start saving for new tires again). But certainly the BJs will need to be addressed relatively soon. I don't know if there's anyway to do a temp. patch job on them, you'd have to fill them with grease and then some how seal it up as best as you could... All the shops that I got quotes from for all 4 BJs said it's an all day project, so 6-7 hours labor from a shop sounds right to me. Took me and 2 buddies 2 days to do all that (also shocks and tie rods)