A lot of the problems originate with the Drive Shafts and doing the below maintenance may save you a lot of time and trouble. These maintenance steps will usually correct the clunk (Grease in the spline) or Grrrrr (U Joints)
Note: You don't need to do all this maintenance on the drive shafts at the same time. If you have a Center Diff Lock Switch (CDL), you can drive with one shaft with the CDL engaged. This will allow you to have both shafts rebuilt without any down time on your truck
The shafts are similar except the Rear is longer and is in phase. Looking at the picture below we can see both shafts have yokes, U Joints, Dust Cover, Spline and Shafts.
Common Clunks and Grrs are caused by faulty Yokes or U Joints, Unbalanced Shafts, not enough grease in U Joints or too much grease in the Spline.
The Front Shaft is "Out of Phase", note the ears on the front yoke and rear yoke are 90 deg offset
The Rear Shaft is "In Phase" note the ears on the front yoke and rear yoke appear to be lined up. One of the common causes of these drive shaft woes is the Front Shaft is "In Phase" when it should be "Out of Phase". OR, The Rear Shaft is "Out of Phase" when it should be In. If you take it to a drive shaft shop, make sure you are clear on the phasing before they balance it.
If you want to get your drive shafts in top condition perform the following:
- Place Paint marks on the flange yokes and the differential. case flanges so you can install the shafts back in the same manner.
- Remove both shafts (or do one at a time if you have only one vehicle)
If you have a CDL switch you can drive with one drive shaft out if the switch is engaged with no issues. This will allow you to do one shaft at a time and still drive your rig
- Inspect shafts for damage, if you see some serious damage, then take to drive shaft shop and have repaired.
- Verify they are oriented per the picture
- Clean off an area were the dust cover mates over the propeller shaft and draw a line with white paint so you can re-orient them back the same way.
- Remove the dust cover of the propeller shaft
- Using Brake cleaner, long sticks, etc. clean all the old grease out of the spline and dust cover. make sure both halves are dry and clean.
- Take apart the shafts and clean out the splines
- Take the Shafts to a Drive shaft shop and have them replace the U Joints with Toyota OEM Joints and balance the shafts. Make sure the phasing is correct before balancing.
- Re-install drive shafts. Grease the zircs on the U Joints until it oozes out of the U joint.
- Take it for a drive and verify everything is operating correctly. The only thing we didn't touch was the yokes, which do go bad, but rarely. The Drive Shaft shop should have checked this.
Or you can use Semlins thread
how to replace the u-joints in your 80 (Semlin Dec 2005) I would still take it to a shop and have it balanced.
Cost for me (Including OEM U Joints) was $197 per shaft replacing the U Joints and balancing.
When I had my shaft problem, the Rear U Joints seemed fine when cool, i.e. at the shop. But when Slee drove it around and took it off while it was warm, you could feel a dead spot in the U Joint that went away when it was cool. My recommendation is to change all the U Joints and have it balanced at the same time even if the shop says you don;t need to.
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Originally Posted by concretejungle
Trust me shotts, i have lots of experience in this. Take the rear shaft out and see if it drives smooth with only the front shaft in.
I was chasing down vibs just like you are. Would remove the front shaft and it was smooth as silk with only the rear in. Put the front shaft in and vibs would come back. Turned out to be the rear shaft (80%) and a little front shaft (20%), but i would have sworn it was just the front shaft.
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