Front end slamming
 

So my truck has kind of a shaking in the front somewhere, feels like it comes from lower down like steering and suspension area. I happens mostly when the truck is slowing down, like when you brake from say 55 down to 40-ish, the front of the truck will bounce a few times. Then when you come up towards the end of a stop (particularly on normal stops as opposed to hard stops), you can feel a light pattering in the front, then right as you come up to the end and the momentum is going from pushing the front down back to leveling out, something will slam in the front of the truck, almost like a broken motor mount would slam the engine back down, but I don't think it actually is a motor mount, that just kinda describes the sensation. A lot of times it will lurch several times rather than just one big "bang". It does it worse sometimes than other times. It has also done it with the engine not running, and I've gotten it to do it by not pushing the brake pedal and stopping with the parking brake instead. So that tells me it's not a big engine miss or a problem with the front brakes.

Also, the wheel bearings are brand new and torqued properly, rotors are freshly turned also. Had a messed up CV shaft replaced also thinking that might be it, but it didn't do anything. This has been stumping me for a while now. Any ideas/experience is greatly appreciated. :)

lift 1 tire in the air and wobble right to left. that will find your steering slop. then wobble up and down to check wheel bearings. also do you have manual hubs?

Yes, manual hubs. Wheel bearings are definitely not it. If I lift one tire in the air, I can wiggle it to where it turns the steering wheel/other tire back and forth, I don't know if that's freeplay or normal.

check your A arm bushings. maybe they are REALLY bad and cause your a arms to float around and make all that noise when you have the added pressure from breaking on them.

does it go away or change if you lock the hubs in?

If I remember what's happened in the past, I don't believe locking the hubs or putting it in 4wd changes it, but I'm not 100%, I'll go double check right now. Thanks for the A-arm suggestion, I've thought about that but haven't really pursued any suspension work yet. I'll take another look at 'em, maybe get some pics (cuz I know how you guys love pics). :hillbill:

Update: Well locking the hubs/putting it in 4wd doesn't affect it. The bushings and grease boots on the a-arms are all (mostly) in tact, and things look fairly tight. I did notice that the right lower ball joint is missing the grease zerk, and the boot feels almost totally dry (I can squeeze air in and out of the boot). Think that could be it? I've greased the uppers myself, never could manage to get a grease gun to fit on to the lowers, but the left lower got greased when I had the left halfshaft replaced (which ended up being free cuz I promised the mechanic I'd have him do my clutch someday :hillbill:), but apparently the right lower is all dried up. Does anyone think it's salvageable or will it have to be replaced if its been run dry? I haven't a clue if that's my problem (although the slam does seem to come more from the right than the left), but this is the first decent thing besides my torn CV that I've come across.

Is it an auto tranny? I had a car once that would occasionally make a loud clunk sound, the front end would drop a couple of inches slowing the vehicle down substantially while it locked the tranny for a second. It was the tranny that was on it's way out one broken chunk getting stuck at a time. Wasn't pleasant.
Just a thought.

No, 5spd. I couldn't really tell you if the tranny is affecting it or not. BTW, is is possible to change that lower ball joint I mentioned without removing the whole steering knuckle, shock, swaybar, etc?