I've been having a noise in the front end that increases with speed. How do I know if it's my unit bearing or something else?

 

If your talking about the wheel bearing you can jack the front of your truck up and grab the top and bottom of the tire. Then push on the top and pull on the bottom and then vise versa and if it wobbles back and forth quite a bit then there is your problem.

 

does it change when you turn the truck left to right? is it a kinda growling groaning noise? If its a front bearing the pitch of the noise will change or it will go away when you turn back and fourth left to right. if the noise gets worse when you turn left and goes away when you turn right its your right side if it gets worse when you turn right its the left. if it doesn't change it could be both or it could be tire noise. jacking up and checking for play may not be accurate I have seen many bearings that were making noise that had no play and bearings with play that weren't making noise.

 

Isn't that the procedure for testing ball joints, or is that slightly different? I did this test over the weekend because I'm starting to feel some slop when on rougher roads. Both wheels were a little wiggly, but the passenger side a little more so.

 

Ball joints=side to side, wheel bearing/unit bearing=top+bottom.

 

Bearings get noisy when they head south. You have to be on nice smooth highway to hear it.

 

I thought side to side was tie rod?

 

I'm getting a clunk, clunk, clunk noise. It changes with speed. I never noticed a difference with a turn but I'll check.

 

Me too. But I just don't know.

 

u joint in the axle. Driver side is notorius. You be able to see it cracked.

 

I second the ujoints. Mine are out and I'm just waiting for a mild day to change them. The sound you describe has to nearly be that if it was more of a growl of squeal I'd say bearings. I had to replace both sides on my 01 around 120k but these have outlasted that and dont seem to bad so far knock on wood.

 

While driving today I heard the noise but it went away when I turned the corner. I was also thinking u-joint but wanted to make sure.

 

+1 on the u-joints. To check them out crawl under the truck & grab the axle u-joint. Any looseness means the joint is bad.

 

I grabbed them but no movement. I tried using a pry bar and still no movement. Maybe they aren't bad enough to have that much play in such a short distance.

 

Quote:
Originally Posted by Matt S View Post
I thought side to side was tie rod?

Me too. But I just don't know.

My BAD. You guys are right. The one I meant was after the wiggle test (top to bottom), really lean into it, top first. Ignore the play you may notice during the wiggle test, and any movement left over is ball joints. The wiggle test is wheel/unit bearings.