60 Series Axle swap with the Trail Tailor Coil Conversion (10 Viewers)

[dbbowen]

Are you running a DC with pinion clocked towards the tcase flange?

Nope! I like single joint driveshafts. My rear drive shaft has 1350 single joints and has .134 wall thickness so its in theory bulletproof, but i got adjustable rear upper and lower control arms to really dial in the pinion angle. They are parallel within 2 degrees of each other and should be perfect for a single joint drive shaft.


in the front i kind of got lucky and they are within 1 degree of each other thanks to the 5* caster shims


What im wondering is that my flange vertical degrees are pretty much dead on, but with the 80 axle, the diff is almost centered. I wonder if i need to factor the horizontal offset into my calculation because the driveshaft is definteily no longer straight longitudinally like parallel with the frame rails if that makes any sense

I was just up under there and my tcase is pointed downwards a little. Its at 87 degrees on my s***ty angle finder. The Axle flange is pointed up and is at 88 degrees. Like i feel like thats pretty much perfect.

What i did notice is that my tcase is slightly pointed more towards the passenger side of the truck. The rear pinion is square. I couldnt find the angle difference because my angle finder doesnt work when its sitting horizontally. Im wondering if this misalignment is whats causing the vibration

 

[4runner2FJ60]

FWIW when I converted to the 80 rear a year ago, I had a new rear shaft made at Tom Woods. Gave them all the angles and they confirmed a DC was not needed. For comparison my tcase was angled down 2* and when I welded my perches I matched it with a 2* up on the diff flange. Sounds like you are VERY close to the same as my numbers when you subtract from 90*. The diff being offset more to the middle has not caused any vibration at all.

 

[Idaho Savage]

Start with balancing your tires and/or alignment. Occam's Razor and all...

 

[dbbowen]

FWIW when I converted to the 80 rear a year ago, I had a new rear shaft made at Tom Woods. Gave them all the angles and they confirmed a DC was not needed. For comparison my tcase was angled down 2* and when I welded my perches I matched it with a 2* up on the diff flange. Sounds like you are VERY close to the same as my numbers when you subtract from 90*. The diff being offset more to the middle has not caused any vibration at all.

Start with balancing your tires and/or alignment. Occam's Razor and all...

So i got the driveshaft balanced today at Truckpro and it eliminated 90% of the driveline vibration. I still am getting a little bit at coast at higher speed and a little grumble noise. I think my pinion angle needs just a tiny bit more tinkering with but just about all of the crazy alarming vibrtations are gone. The driveshaft had zero weights on it before and they added two at truckpro

The coasting vibration is hard to explain its like a grumble not how it was before which just shaked the whole truck lol


@Idaho Savage tomorrow i am putting on some front spring spacers and going to get an alignment and check the balance on my tires on Sunday. Hoping to make sure its not the tires 100%

 

[dbbowen]

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[dbbowen]

Ok progress. I was able to get my tcase to diff operating angle difference to within .2 of a degree. Theres more to it than just matching the flanges ive learned. Heres where im at now.

So fingers crossed that helps. I also measured 12, 3, 6, and 9 oclock on both pinion and t case output flange to get some kind of horizontal angle measurement and sure enough its my pinion that is pointed to the passenger side. I did a lot of measurements and my passenger front lower control arm mount i welded to the frame was 1/8 of an inch further back than the driver side. Idiot.

I was able to take 1/8 of an inch out of both the upper and lower control arm on the passenger side and it squared the flange back up and didnt mess with the pinion angle. thank god i got adjustable arms


Thankfully my front spring spacer gets here tomorrow and ill probably have to do all of this over again if it changes my pinion angle lifting the front.

Edit:

Well that didn’t work. Back to the drawing board.

 

[Dubs2017]

Finally had a chance to catch up on your progress. Wow. Epic week in the garage, man.

 

[4runner2FJ60]

How's it drive after the alignment?

 

[dbbowen]

Finally had a chance to catch up on your progress. Wow. Epic week in the garage, man.

Dude. A lot went down. Haha. Out driving it around now. Still needs some final tweaks but it’s great!

How's it drive after the alignment?

Alignment is tomorrow. Going to check all wheels are square too, and also check the balance on the tires. If that doesn’t do it. I think I’ll need a new driveshaft

 

[dbbowen]

So I’m kinda at a loss on the driveline. I tried straight up parallel to my t case output which is 2.4 degrees down. 0 degree difference. 1 degree difference. 2 degrees and 3 degrees. Both ways. Up and down. Can not get rid of the driveline vibration at high way speeds. Cruising around town it’s fine but on the highway on accel and worse on coast it’s grumbling and vibrating.

Im thinking my driveshaft is messed up or something. Might need to order a new one from Tom woods this week. I’m going tomorrow to check the alignment and how square my tires are and the wheel balance to fully rule all of that out but.


The good news is that my spring spacer came in today and lifted the front up an inch. The rear is still an inch higher than the front but the rear should settle down about an inch over the next few months (I hope) and then it wil be more level.


Before

After

 

[dbbowen]

Another weird thing is that my new bottle opener has tighter tolerances than the open end on my gear wrench wrenches. Never again GW. Thank you @TRAIL TAILOR !

Raising the front an inch dropped the rear ever so slightly. I can now pull in and out of my garage as long as my tires are under 40 psi and there’s about 1/8 of an inch of clearance now

 

[DickM]

So I’m kinda at a loss on the driveline.

I am sure you have checked, but the last time I fought a driveline mystery vibration, I had put the driveshaft together slightly out of phase.
Congrats on the project, looks great!

 

[dbbowen]

I am sure you have checked, but the last time I fought a driveline mystery vibration, I had put the driveshaft together slightly out of phase.
Congrats on the project, looks great!

Thanks man. Just double checked and it looked in phase. I need to double check the pinion but is fully tight I guess. Outside of tires and driveshaft being bad I can’t think of anything else!

 

[BurntToast]

Thanks man. Just double checked and it looked in phase. I need to double check the pinion but is fully tight I guess. Outside of tires and driveshaft being bad I can’t think of anything else!

Do you have a GoPro? Maybe mount it down there in a few locations and look for something odd

 

[4runner2FJ60]

If all else fails, Tom Wood's is great to work with. Also double check your drive shaft bolts at each end! It took me a couple months, with a vibration over 35mph, to notice the rear flange had only 3 bolts in it and two where about to fall out! She's sitting nice now!

 

[dbbowen]

So i took the truck and got it aligned today. toe is all good. Caster is a little high since my lift is so low. ITs at like 6 ish degrees. I think the caster is different between left and right because the A and B ome springs and different height.

I even got my rear axle square to 0.07 degrees...

When i left my vibrations got worse, so i went home and centered my tcase output flange to my new centered rear pinion flange and its still vibrating. Whats crazy is its vibrating when i hit bumps and turn left now. Its 100% driveline vibration from the rear shaft. Im not even running a front shaft. My Tcase flange is pointed down 3.1 degrees, and my rear diff is pointed up 2.5 degrees, giving me .6 degrees of difference which is as dialed as it will get.


The only thing i can think of is that the diff is slightly offset to the passenger side due to the 80 axle being different. If i was to flip the car on its side and measure with my angle finder i dont know if they would be parallel like the normal measurement is. Like in the image below for top view. I can not for the life of me figure out how to measure this. What ive been doing so far is measuring the 3 oclock and the 6 oclock of the flanges on both the pinion and the tcase and making them match up. Right now they are matched up to 1/16 of an inch. If i try and use an angle finder on it, it doesnt work because angle finders dont work horizontally.

My only other thing is it could be my driveshaft or ujoints? Im thinking about biting the bullet and ordering a new one from tom woods to see if that helps, i would just hate to install a new driveshaft only to have it still vibrate like it is now.

 

[Idaho Savage]

I don't want to have you go down any fruitless rabbit holes but I had a joint go bad on an old bronco and the symptoms were syonomous. But I don't know, man. Tough call.

Seems like there are some real gurus on these topics around here. Maybe call em to your thread? CruiserMatt and Trailtailor come to mind, amongst several, several others. The Oregonian with the diesel 60 (Hobart?) also seems near you...or somewhat near you.

Edit: Best way to do this is start a separate thread soley about this challenge. The jedis will come.

 

[tmxmotorsports]

I would change the u joints if they haven't been changed.

 

[dbbowen]

I don't want to have you go down any fruitless rabbit holes but I had a joint go bad on an old bronco and the symptoms were syonomous. But I don't know, man. Tough call.

Seems like there are some real gurus on these topics around here. Maybe call em to your thread? CruiserMatt and Trailtailor come to mind, amongst several, several others. The Oregonian with the diesel 60 (Hobart?) also seems near you...or somewhat near you.

Edit: Best way to do this is start a separate thread soley about this challenge. The jedis will come.

I THINK i have found a way to somewhat calculate the horizontal angle in this really old spicer pdf talking about compound angles, might give that a shot tomorrow. I think changing the ujoint couldnt hurt too

I would change the u joints if they haven't been changed.

Yeah that is probably a good call. These driveshafts are only about 2 or so years old but they have a cross country trip on them and ive been driving it a ton with the driveline vibrations going crazy

 

[tmxmotorsports]

I think it's the changes the angles. The u joints have been working at one drive shaft angle now have I'm sure changed and also a compound angle now.
Tom woods shafts are nice tho.