Hi all. I'm at a loss for the problem my gf is having with her 99 Explorer 4WD, 6cyl. We just had a rebuilt tranny put in and the ball joints aren't very old. She has been complaining about a clicking noise coming from somewhere in the front end so I had a mechanic check the front end when he changed the oil and rotated the tires and he said it was all tight.

I took it out myself and while I could hear the popping sound but even after jacking it up and pushing and pulling on everything I couldn't find anything loose. The only thing that made me wonder was that I could turn the wheels several inches each way (the steering wheel turned with them).

After doing this I took it back on the road to again see if I could figure out the reason. While out I noticed that now when I did low speed (<15-20) turns to the right the steering wheel would shudder quite a bit. It doesn't shudder on left turns. Over the course of the 10 minutes I was driving it got somewhat worse. The power steering fluid was full, as was the transmission fluid.

Any ideas? This is a daily driver but that shuddering has me concerned.