Carrier Bearing bracket

Vermonster

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Hi all,
trying to sort out a very minor vibration in the steering wheel post lift, repeated balancing and alignments. I thought it was tires, but after a few balances it is still an issue (maybe a defective tire, but exploring all options at the moment).

In crawling under the truck, everything looks and feels snug and as expected. The only thing I noticed was the bracket that holds the carrier bearing/driveshaft looks like it has been tightened, then moved to a new location and re-tightened (this did not happen at install, and I really doubt the alignment or tire shop ever touched it). Can anyone else confirm the same on their ranger, or give me any input or thoughts on this? check out the photos- you can see where it was tightened once and is now shifted almost completely to the opposite side of the slotted hole on both sides. Care to crawl under your truck and fill me in on what you find/see?

IMG_3839.jpg


IMG_3842.jpg


IMG_3843.jpg
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Vermonster

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did you do your lift yourself?

I'm no lift specialist, but I suspect that geometry changes would necessitate that theres a possibility that this bearing needs to be re-positioned to some degree
A friend and we’ll experienced mechanic did the lift at his shop. He did not move this bracket.

The lift was only 2.5-3” fox coil overs. I have not seen or heard of anyone else having to move the bearing with a small lift/leveling kit. Nothing changed in the rear (no lift in the back) other than upgraded shocks to replaced stock.
 

DHMag

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The bearing itself should be self-aligning, but I could be wrong. Most self aligning bearings will allow for up to 3 degrees is misalignment.
 

P. A. Schilke

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Hi all,
trying to sort out a very minor vibration in the steering wheel post lift, repeated balancing and alignments. I thought it was tires, but after a few balances it is still an issue (maybe a defective tire, but exploring all options at the moment).

In crawling under the truck, everything looks and feels snug and as expected. The only thing I noticed was the bracket that holds the carrier bearing/driveshaft looks like it has been tightened, then moved to a new location and re-tightened (this did not happen at install, and I really doubt the alignment or tire shop ever touched it). Can anyone else confirm the same on their ranger, or give me any input or thoughts on this? check out the photos- you can see where it was tightened once and is now shifted almost completely to the opposite side of the slotted hole on both sides. Care to crawl under your truck and fill me in on what you find/see?

IMG_3839.jpg


IMG_3842.jpg


IMG_3843.jpg
Hi Vermonster

First...terminology. It is a Driveshaft Center Bearing.

Carrier bearings are in the Rear or Front Axle differential. It is puzzling why you would have witness marks that show adjustment Someone had to loosen up and adjust for some reason. Is it possible that this unit was driven as part of a plant drive and flagged for a vibration and hit the assembly plant repair area for resolution? That would be my guess. How many miles on your odo when you picked it up. There is usually a sticker on the side window by the Monrony Label that indicates a plant drive, but dealer might have scrapped this off. There are engineering drives and when I did these drives they were longer than plant drives..maybe up to 50-60 miles. I carried a roll of stickers with me that extended the warranty by the amount of the drive mileage.

best,
Phil Schilke
Ranger Vehicle Engineering
Ford Motor Co. Retired
 

P. A. Schilke

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Hi V,

Okay...crawled under the truck and my bolts look like yours but without any witness marks Not sure what this means for your's having witness marks.

best,
Phil Schilke
Ranger Vehicle Engineering
Ford Motor Co. Retired
 


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Vermonster

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Thanks Phil.

The truck had about 35 miles on it when I picked it up. It was on the dealers lot.

P. A. Schilke said:
Hi Vermonster

First...terminology. It is a Driveshaft Center Bearing.

Carrier bearings are in the Rear or Front Axle differential. It is puzzling why you would have witness marks that show adjustment Someone had to loosen up and adjust for some reason. Is it possible that this unit was driven as part of a plant drive and flagged for a vibration and hit the assembly plant repair area for resolution? That would be my guess. How many miles on your odo when you picked it up. There is usually a sticker on the side window by the Monrony Label that indicates a plant drive, but dealer might have scrapped this off. There are engineering drives and when I did these drives they were longer than plant drives..maybe up to 50-60 miles. I carried a roll of stickers with me that extended the warranty by the amount of the drive mileage.

best,
Phil Schilke
Ranger Vehicle Engineering
Ford Motor Co. Retired
hil.
 

P. A. Schilke

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Thanks Phil.

The truck had about 35 miles on it when I picked it up. It was on the dealers lot.


hil.
Hi VM,

Yep...it was part of a plant drive with that ODO... You are lucky as this has to be the best way to Id problems and fix them before the customer gets the vehicle!

Best,
Phil Schilke
Ranger Vehicle Engineering
Ford Motor Co. Retired
 
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Vermonster

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Hi V,

Okay...crawled under the truck and my bolts look like yours but without any witness marks Not sure what this means for your's having witness marks.

best,
Phil Schilke
Ranger Vehicle Engineering
Ford Motor Co. Retired
Thanks Phil. Are yours shifted all the way to the rear end side of the slotted mounting holes as well? If I am getting a slight vibration would it make sense to try to adjust this back towards the center a bit and see if it improves, or best to not touch it?
 

P. A. Schilke

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Thanks Phil. Are yours shifted all the way to the rear end side of the slotted mounting holes as well? If I am getting a slight vibration would it make sense to try to adjust this back towards the center a bit and see if it improves, or best to not touch it?
Hi VM,

I would loosen after putting the vehicle in neutral and the parking brake set. Bounce the vehicle up an down and then tighten the center bearing bracket. See if this improves the condition...otherwise do not touch it.

My bracket is all the way back and I did the above and it stayed in the positon all the way back... I have a very smooth driveline wirt second order driveshaft vibrations of which U joints are the excitation source.

Best,
Phil Schilke
Ranger Vehicle Engineering
Ford Motor Co. Retired
 

Pep

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Hey Phil,
I have the vibration at initial start, and it feels like the rear differential or some part of the drive line. Not the transmission. I crawled under my truck and everything looks tight. But I did notice I have these same type of witness marks, on my center support bearing. It has been moved from all the way back to all the way forward. Also I did notice my rear springs are not aligned they appear to be "twisted" slightly if you are facing the tail gate both upper springs are slightly to the left of the lower spring.

Center Support Bearing.jpg


left rear spring.jpg


right rear spring.jpg
 

P. A. Schilke

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Hey Phil,
I have the vibration at initial start, and it feels like the rear differential or some part of the drive line. Not the transmission. I crawled under my truck and everything looks tight. But I did notice I have these same type of witness marks, on my center support bearing. It has been moved from all the way back to all the way forward. Also I did notice my rear springs are not aligned they appear to be "twisted" slightly if you are facing the tail gate both upper springs are slightly to the left of the lower spring.
Hi Lance,

You have a slight spring splay...likely minor effect but I would recommend taking it to the dealer for correction. If you are handy, you could loosen up the ubolts and using a dead blow hammer, align the spring leaves. As for the center bearing, loosen up the two bolts and start the engine with the parking brake set. Select drive and apply the throttle lightly..repeat in reverse...then back to park and kill the engine. Tighten up the center bearing bolts again and evaluate. A bit of a long shot but a few folks felt it reduced the startup shudder.

There is a more involved powertrain neutralization that the dealer can perform that includes loosening the engine mounts, exhaust system and other items and then starting the engine and doing the above.


Good Luck!

Best,
Phil Schilke
Ranger Vehicle Engineering
Ford Motor Co. Retired
 

Rick - Saber

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Hi @P. A. Schilke

Phil, in your response of... (a few posts up)

Yep...it was part of a plant drive with that ODO... You are lucky as this has to be the best way to Id problems and fix them before the customer gets the vehicle!
...could you please expand more on what you mean by a 'plant drive'. Is it a vehicle randomly chosen for quality testing? Or more a vehicle was found with a problem that was diagnosed, tested and fixed?

I ask because my truck had about 50 something miles on it when I picked it up. Your mention of 'plant drive' has me wonder if mine was also. I have had no problems with my truck thankfully. I am very pleased with my Ranger truck.

Did not think to ask at the time why my special factory order had so many miles. Thought maybe it was delivered to a central location out of town and then driven to the small-ish town dealer where I ordered. Never felt it was test driven by the dealer a bunch because I got it in the morning the day after delivery.

Thanks,
Rick
 
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Hi @P. A. Schilke

Phil, in your response of... (a few posts up)



...could you please expand more on what you mean by a 'plant drive'. Is it a vehicle randomly chosen for quality testing? Or more a vehicle was found with a problem that was diagnosed, tested and fixed?

I ask because my truck had about 50 something miles on it when I picked it up. Your mention of 'plant drive' has me wonder if mine was also. I have had no problems with my truck thankfully. I am very pleased with my Ranger truck.

Did not think to ask at the time why my special factory order had so many miles. Thought maybe it was delivered to a central location out of town and then driven to the small-ish town dealer where I ordered. Never felt it was test driven by the dealer a bunch because I got it in the morning the day after delivery.

Thanks,
Rick
I was told that sometimes the trucks are driven from the plant to the train yard, which is about 15 miles away - if they did the extended test drive at the plant, I think you should have had a piece of paper in the truck that said how many miles it was - they extend the warranty by those miles is my understanding. Mine had like 28 miles when I got it, and I don't think the dealer did much in the way of a test drive either. But maybe they did.
 

P. A. Schilke

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Hi @P. A. Schilke

Phil, in your response of... (a few posts up)



...could you please expand more on what you mean by a 'plant drive'. Is it a vehicle randomly chosen for quality testing? Or more a vehicle was found with a problem that was diagnosed, tested and fixed?

I ask because my truck had about 50 something miles on it when I picked it up. Your mention of 'plant drive' has me wonder if mine was also. I have had no problems with my truck thankfully. I am very pleased with my Ranger truck.

Did not think to ask at the time why my special factory order had so many miles. Thought maybe it was delivered to a central location out of town and then driven to the small-ish town dealer where I ordered. Never felt it was test driven by the dealer a bunch because I got it in the morning the day after delivery.

Thanks,
Rick
Hi Rick,

You are correct, a plant drive is randomly selected vehicle that the plant QC folks drive to ensure everything is correct or sometimes after a line problem was identified and the drive was to verify the correction was satisfactory...if anything is noted, it is put into the repair bays before shipping, so in a way it is a good deal if your vehicle had some mileage... I do not know current laws, but we were always told to keep any engineering drives under 50 miles and definitely below 125 miles as we then had to buy the vehicle and ship back to Dearborn. I think Plant QC drives did not have to document mileage below 50 miles, but we had a roll of stickers that indicated an engineering drive and that the warranty was extended by the mileage shown on the odometer. Again, if we found something, there was a plant QC review and then a repair. When I headed up Vehicle Launch for Ranger, we had to drive a set number of units...Something in order of 50 units for between major launchs and maybe double that for major launches.

Here is another backstory.

1990 Aerostar All Wheel Drive Launch...I was just NVH support but as I had struggled to get a handle on powertrain moan by developing a large brace between the transmission bellhousing and the transfer case. I was curious to see that powertrain install in the body, so some other members of the Launch Team joined me walking up the line to the point where the powertrain was installed. We were under strict orders to follow process anytime we were in the plant, and that was if we saw anything wrong or of concern, we were to notify plant personnel...line Foreman, QC rep or such. NEVER Take things into our own hands. On the way to the area, we cut through the body paint area. As the bodies came out of paint and a quick trip through some heat lamps, the body then headed around a corner and in to the paint oven..Prior to the oven, the rear hatch was secured at about a 45° angle by a plant installed bracket. Well...one of the brackets was not installed properly and the hatch went back up to its full open position which would trash the hatch in the paint oven.... One of the folks with me, (who will remain unidentified) shouted "I am on it!" and jumped into the Aerostar body and pulled the hatch down and secured the bracket to the hatch....And then he and the Aerostar body entered the paint oven. Yikes!!!! We had no idea of what would happen to this engineer.. Only thing was to alert the emergency response team and tell them what happened... We were so shocked none of us could remember the color of the body, so the team stationed themselves at the exit of the oven...It seemed like hours passed but finally the Aerostar popped out of the oven...fellow was helped out of the Aerostar body and whisked away on a stretcher on a golf cart to Plant Medical... He looked like a cooked goose. Fortunately this engineer was okay, shaken and dehydrated but not in need of transportation to a hospital.

The whole team caught hell from the plant manager...not a very pleasant experience... The plant had never before had something like this happen, at least as the folks around us could recall... Certainly a lesson learned by that engineer....

Best,
Phil Schilke
Ranger Vehicle Engineering
Ford Motor Co. Retired
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