Alignment of driveshaft yokes & mystery vibrations

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I'm speechless!
 
And I'll have to be more careful what I say. I'm presently "in deep water" in another thread. And calling people "foreigners" may well offend them. (I used that word "tongue in cheek" -and whilst bearing in mind the fact that most people on MUD would regard me and you as "foreigners".)

Yer always welcome in my thread, mate! And it's good to keep in mind that we're all "foreigners" somewhere :D

Good stuff - this will be of great value when I can finally start bolting the Blue Mule back together.

:cheers: Dan
 
would a misaligned DS yoke cause a constant vibration or only at certain speeds? My vibrations start at ~40mph my rear DS yokes are not aligned according to Factory Specifications. I can feel the vibration in the steering wheel as well.
 
would a misaligned DS yoke cause a constant vibration or only at certain speeds? My vibrations start at ~40mph my rear DS yokes are not aligned according to Factory Specifications. I can feel the vibration in the steering wheel as well.

I would think misaligned yokes could well be the cause of your "over 40 mph" vibrations. (And I doubt you would notice vibrations "at all speeds" from misaligned yokes - After all - I never notice any vibrations AT ALL from mine.)

But why can't you simply correct your driveshaft misalignment and go for another test drive? :confused: (You would still gain from correcting the misalignment even if it doesn't stop your vibrations.)

:cheers:
 
would a misaligned DS yoke cause a constant vibration or only at certain speeds? My vibrations start at ~40mph my rear DS yokes are not aligned according to Factory Specifications. I can feel the vibration in the steering wheel as well.

Yes... Even if it wasn't causing vibration you should fix it because it can cause unnecessary wear on your rear and transfer case.

Kevin
 
I did just that and still have a vibration. the flange on the rear third member seemed to not feel right when i had the d-shaft off. it seemed like it had a lot of movement in it. Any suggestions?
 
I did just that and still have a vibration. the flange on the rear third member seemed to not feel right when i had the d-shaft off. it seemed like it had a lot of movement in it. Any suggestions?

Sounds like your pinion nut is loose, which is very bad. I would remove the pinion nut, apply red locktite and retorque to the proper spec and stake well. If you still have slop after doing this then you probably have a bad pinion bearing and you need to pull the 3rd member and have a look.
 

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Yes... Even if it wasn't causing vibration you should fix it because it can cause unnecessary wear on your rear and transfer case.

Kevin

Man, I HATE unnecessary wear on my rear! Gotta remind the boss of that the next time he's chewing.... oh, wait :whoops:

You mean the rear of the 40! :lol:

Thanks for the laugh.
:cheers:
 
I knew my rear driveshaft was 180 degree out of phase; it was close to alignment but was one spline off. I pulled it the weekend and lined it up correctly.

I have a noisy rear diff, but fixing the drive shaft in this way cut the noise by half. Food for thought.
 
I already aligned my rear DS, I have to replace a u joint on my front DS. I'm pretty sure its coming from my rear DS it's really wierd. The vibration seemed to make my rig heat up while on the highway yesterday. I'll check for play with the DS installed and get back to you. Yes i have locking hubs so it's not from my front DS spinning.
 
I've got vertical and horizontal movement on my rear Differential flange as well as a small leak. Tonight I will try to tighten the pinion nut and if that doesn't work what are my options and what is it going to cost me?
 
Before I take my rear driveshaft back to the folks that installed new u-joints and balanced the shaft, I want to make sure I have a valid beef. I think the u-joint zerk in the rear yoke should be positioned at 1:00 based on the photo below as if looking from the rear of the shaft. Currently both u-joint zerks are positioned at 11:00 with the Sleeve Yoke zerk correctly positioned at 12:00.

When I picked up the shaft, he mentioned that it was way out of balance and he had to add weights to get it to balance correctly. I'm thinking he had to correct his zerk misalignment mistake and add weights. Thoughts anyone?

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I wouldn't worry about the zerk position so long as they are sufficiently "on the same side of the driveshaft" to enable you to grease them all at once without having to move the vehicle (without having to rotate the driveshaft).

And even if a driveshaft-manufacturer put them 180 degrees out (that is - on opposite sides) - I doubt it would be sufficient grounds to say their work was "not up to standard".

It is the yokes that really matter in my opinion. - And yours look fine.
 
So is the alignment of the zerks correct or not? I paid close to $90 to install the u-joints, balance and paint the shaft. For that much I think it should be done correctly if it's not.
 
Vibration in 97 LC

I know this is in advance, but I want to thank you all for this thread. I just got my 97 LC two weeks ago and am starting to work out the bugs. One problem is at 68 mph a weird sort of resonance starts. Between 70 and 75 it gets really bad. I never tried going faster to see if it subsides. What happens is the whole vehicle sort of vibrates, hums or howls at those speeds. It is hard to identify where it is coming from because it seems to be the entire vehicle all at the same time. If you've ever been in a C-130 airplane you can imagine this. In the plane, the engines send a rhythmic vibration through the fuselage. It's like that in the LC at 70 and above. I could only imagine it was the tires or balance at work.

So, I took the Cruiser in to have the brakes checked today. I need all new pads and rotors, and all new tires. So I hoped maybe that would fix it, but I mentioned I had a weird vibration and they checked it out too. The mechanic showed me that the front driveshaft is new. Uh oh. And, where it's attached to the transfer case it was not bolted on the same way as originally. They even "tack welded" that part. I will go look tomorrow and see if the yokes are in alignment and all that stuff everyone was talking about earlier. It makes sense to me though, as an audiophile, that this new DS might be installed incorrectly and causing a harmonic vibration due to phase problems. The mechanic thought the DS wasn't round, but I have a harder time believing that. Anyway, the brakes will have to wait two weeks, tires two more weeks, and the vibration will get dealt with after that.

I'll come back and post the results once the problem is identified and solved. My $500+ oil change today has set everything else back. Well, it was more than oil, basically every fluid is new and I paid for the "system clean" and will get new fan belts out of it.
 
My driveshaft has alignment marks, and weights at various points on both shafts. I just use that as my guide.

Apparently a PO took the time and money to have them balanced, and who am I to quibble. It works and I can run greater than 4000 rpm without a problem.
 
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