Need a little help with my K10

[epfatboy]

Right after I post this I'll be youtubing a few things as well but I wanted to get this out there as its been a while and I know I'm gonna need a little help.

My problem is I have a '86 K10 and I believe I have a ball joint/wheel bearing problem up front. The problem started by me thinking the rotors were warped as the truck started shaking a bit when I applied the brakes. I dug in and found the rotors to be fine and while I was there I replaced the tie rod ends.

Hoping the problem was solved too her out on a test drive and no dice. And in addition after running it at highway speeds the truck started shaking WITH OUT me touching the brakes... And once it started to shake getting it to stop and not shake again required slowing down to like 20-30 MPH and staying there. It does not feel like a speed wobble.

It was like running it at speed for a bit heated up something and caused it to shake.... All I can think of is the wheel bearings are shot heated up and caused the shaking somehow, but I honestly have not had this happen to me before so I thought I'd ask for a little help.

And since I'm gonna potentially do the wheelbearings/ball joints.... Is there anything else I should be doing? I'm already considering changing out the steering box as it looks like it could be original...

Any good youtube sites I should look at as well to help me with this assembly/dis-assembly?

[geezer#99]

Could be idler arm.
Or loose wheel bearings.
Or worst case a cracked frame near the steering box.
Or low air pressure on tires.

Jack up the passenger front tire and grip the two sides of the tire and move it in/out. Watch for movement of tie rods and idler arm. Shouldn’t be much.
Grip the tire top and bottom and move it in/out.
Shouldn’t be much movement. If lots of movement then suspect wheel bearings or wrong torque on them.

You can do that on both sides.
Another remote possibility is a bent rim on front or back.

[Shifty One]

Inspect the tires closely, could be tread separation.

[57taskforce]

Originally Posted by geezer#99

Could be idler arm.
Or loose wheel bearings.
Or worst case a cracked frame near the steering box.
Or low air pressure on tires.

Jack up the passenger front tire and grip the two sides of the tire and move it in/out. Watch for movement of tie rods and idler arm. Shouldn’t be much.
Grip the tire top and bottom and move it in/out.
Shouldn’t be much movement. If lots of movement then suspect wheel bearings or wrong torque on them.

You can do that on both sides.
Another remote possibility is a bent rim on front or back.

K10 doesn’t have an idler arm. I’d definitely start at the tires and work your way in. How bad is the shake on a scale of 1-10?

[MJN]

Check your body mounts too- chased a similar issue on a friends truck and ultimately turned out to be worn out body mounts.