Has anyone ever had or fixed a front end vibration by replacing the front axle/cv's. I have searched the site for previous post on front end vibrations and found many good links and posts, but all of the usual causes (wheel bearings, wheel and tire issues, alignment,u-joints, drive shaft etc) check out. I was talking to a coworker and he mentioned that his Chevy Tahoe with auto locking front, was experiencing similar vibration and it turned out that one of his front axles had a worn cv joint. Since my 97 has the ADD and the font axles do spin while driving this seems like a logical scenario. The vibration I get is from about 72 to 85 mph and it feels very similar to what I get in my 88 when I forget to unlock the front hubs and get up on the highway. Any other front end components I should be looking into?

There are 2 TSB's out there for your rig that might be of interest, one is for front brake vibration. The other (believe or not)is for a groove that's cut into the alloy wheels to better retain your weights. Yep, I was surprised.

My '99 is okay at those speeds with alloys on them. I'll be switching to steelies for the winter, so it'll be interesting to see how the ADD will behave that way.

Has the balance been checked on the tires/rims yet?

1997 Runner Drill on down.

Do you have any details on those TSB's?

I'm having a similar vibration and a pulsing in the brakes. The last time I took it to the dealer, they told me that everything seemed fine... all within spec. This may have been before this TSB.

Thanks,
~Dave

Thanks for the TSB info, wheel and tires have been addressed. I went as far as to swap a complete set off of a buddies 98' and the vibe was still there

did you check your buddy's 98 had the same issue or not?

My 98 has a slight vibration at highway speed as well. My trusted friend and front end mechanic says my steering rack is worn. He also said that aftermarket remans were no better than the worn out ones he replaced so he suggested I go with a new Toyota rack. That was until we found out that Toyota recently started to offer their own remanufactered rack. That's what I will be going with. The new ones are around a grand or better. The remans are a little less than half that.

The 98 was fine ...thats why I swapped his wheels/tires on to mine so that I could rule them out <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/notooth.gif" alt="" />.I will check the steering assembly out over the weekend..do you have any ideas on how to check out the steering assembly. It seem to drive fine, no wandering or sloppy steering. thanks for the input.

My runner has very slight vib in highway speed too. However it turns out to be the tire imbalance problem. Just for your reference...

Click on the link I posted above, then drill down for your application to get the documents.

Or go here if it doesn't work; I'm past my edit time.

http://www.bedlib.org/ebsco.html click on the auto repair logo.

I bought a 98 4runner with 85k last month. on the highway it started to shimmy at speeds over 50. I had tires replaced and balanced. The shimmy went down a little. Then the rack went and I replaced with an A-1 OEM rack($400). Wheel is solid and drives true at 80.