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Romer

Romer

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Changed the name of the Thread to get your ATTENTION

OK Gang, There are a lot of threads on Drive Train Grrs, clunks etc., I was starting to develop an FAQ for this and have roughed out what it would like like. I would like your help.

Please do the following. Post up your suggestions and rewrites of what I already have done. Post up new sections and directions for troubleshooting. I will then consolidate and re-order and clean this up and repost it back here for the FAQ. The updated thread will then be linked to the FAQ Again, the goal is to have a clear and concise FAQ thread that someone does not have to jump around a lot to figure it out. Suggestion on better ways to organize this would also be appreciated.

I am by no means an expert and please correct any errors here-in

There are a lot of potential causes to these types of issues and they can manifest themselves as either a sound, vibration or both. There are many posts and threads in the 80's section discussing this. Semlin did a great job in this thread trying to summarize it. A lot more troubleshooting has happened since then, so I will plagiarize what Semlin did and add to it the "education" of others including myself.

This is by no means a conclusive list of answers, but is a compilation of forum members issues and solutions. These items are some of the most difficult things to troubleshoot and sometimes you have to take it to a shop who can install electronic ears and take it for a test drive to actually find it.

In my own situation I tried everything (Rebuilt Front Drive Shaft, Swaybar bushings, extensions, CV Drive shaft). I was convinced it was in the front end because if you took the front shaft out, the problem went away. Slee Off Road installed the ears and traced it to my rear drive shaft. Even though the problem went away when I removed the front shaft, it turned out to be the rear shaft.

This thread will cover a normal stock suspension up to a 3.5" lift (2.5" OME with 1" spacers). Lifts 4" above add in new variable relative to pinion angles and may require different shafts, control arms, etc. to compensate for the additional height.

Lifts up to a 3.5" lift should not need different drive shafts or other component change outs to compensate for the lift. This does not include any Castor changes required as part of the lift install itself.

Under the conditions I have described above, the components involved are limited to drive shafts, U Joints, CV Joints, Tcase, Front Diff and Rear diff. With that the components it should be easy to troubleshoot, Right?? Wrong!

So what is your Rig Doing?

GEAR SHIFT CLUNK

ACCELERATION/DECELERATION CLUNK

Grrrr

Vibration

Whine that increases in tone and pitch with speed


Here is a good link on Drive Shaft Info

Pirate Tech Link on Drive Shafts
 
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Preventive Maintenance for the Drive Shaft

Proper Drive Shaft Maintenance. A lot of the problems originate with the Drive Shafts and doing the below maintenance may save you a lot of time and trouble.

Note: You don't need to do all this maintenance on the drive shafts. You can take it piece by piece and troubleshoot. First Make sure they are in the correct phase, then clean spline, then do one drive shaft at a time until problem goes away

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 beforte 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.Tcase 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.


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.
shafts.webp
 
GEAR SHIFT CLUNK

1. If it's a gear shifting issue while driving, especially a clunky downshift when braking at slow speeds, then a throttle cable adjustment is the first step. This is a very easy job described in the FSM at the beginning of the transmission section. This link by randy farnsworth tells you how to do it on the 442 from (93-94) http://www.ih8mud.com/tech/80throttle.php but it is similar on the others. Make sure the cable receiver itself is properly aligned. This is a 1/4 banana job requiring a 12 mm wrench and 2 minutes that can make a surprising difference.

2. Next, check the tranny and transfer case fluids. top up, drain or flush the tranny fluid (using a low pressure flusher that uses the trucks own pump) and replace (you can use synthetic if you want). Top up or drain the gear oil in the transfer case (again synthetic can be used). This will probably not fix a bad clunk but its worth a try and good maintenance.
 
ACCELERATION/DECELERATION CLUNK

1. If you get a clunk when you accelerate or brake that is not associated with a gear shift, chances are it is somewhere in the drive shaft.

2. Checking the transfer case oil level and condition is a good start. Occasionally people find ATF in there by mistake. Also check the front and rear axle diff oil levels and top up or change if required. This is also a good time to make sure your diff breathers are not blocked up.

3. next lube the u-joints but do not lube the drive shafts themselves even though there is a zirc to do this. Also check for play in the u-joints yanking the drive shaft at either end hard in all directions. If you can get a wiggle going you should replace the u-joint. The OEM Toyota u-joint is pricey, but much preferable to aftermarket and usually fails only if it has been allowed to run dry. Replacing a u-joint yourself requires dropping the drive shaft and a c-clamp or similar.

4. Lubing in the drive shaft zirc arguably still does not lube the splines that allow the shaft to slide in and out but too much lube in there can cause unacceptable loading and damage to the t-case or diffs. Instead, drop the drive shafts from the diff ends and separate the drive shafts into two parts at the spline (be sure to make match marks before you separate). clean the spline and receiver area for spline (there may be a lot of built up hardened grease in there) and then lube the spline and reassemble. This is a ½ banana job requiring you to undo 8 bolts (although you have to remember to loosen from the bolt side, not the nut, because the nuts are friction locking and can wear out)

IdahoDoug said:
As many of you know, over greasing the zirk fitting that feeds the rear shaft spline can lead to the shaft being essentially "hydrolocked" and doing damage to the center diff or rear diff due to enormous force they are not designed to take longitudinally.
Click to expand...


5. Check if the drive shafts are in proper "phase". The alignment u-joint arms at either end of the drive shaft should be the same on the rear drive shaft, but at a 90 degree angle on the front drive shaft (e.g., "--" and "--" on the rear, and "[" and "--" on the front). This can apparently cause vibration or other stuff. I just noticed that my front drive shaft was out of phase. It has been for at least 18 months when I had it straightened.

6. next check for play in the u-joints. wiggle them up and down and see if there is play.
 
Grrrrrrr

If you have a GRRR noise that
 
Vibration

If you
 
Whine that increases in pitch as you can speed and decreases as you reduce speed

I had this problem and it turned out to be a problem within the center diff. The whine started and built in pitch and tone when I accelerated and got above 10 MPH. When I decelerated, it sounded like something winding down (changes tone).

One test you can do is the following:

- While driving a constant speed down hill shift into Neutral. Note the impact on the whine pitch and tone. Does it change with the engine RPM or is tied more to vehicle speed. In my case it was tied to the vehicle speed even when put into Neutral.

- Repeat the above test, but use the Center Diff shifter instead of the Tranny shifter. See if there is an impact on the noise.
In My case the noise changed slightly leading us to think it was the Center Diff.

- Changeout the gear oil in the Center Diff and replace it with 140W gear oil. See if this has impacted the sound. In my case it did and it was isolated to inside the Center Diff.

In the Center Diff, it could either be an outer bearing (Most typical) and this can be replaced on a bench after pulling the Center Diff OR it could be something more serious in the Tcase. If you get to this point, take it to a shop who knows these vehicles and differentials and can install the electronic ears. Other than a tear down, the only way to troubleshoot farther is place ears in several places of the diff and see where the noise is coming from.
 
Here is some good info

Portal_tek said:
Just thought I would post some info on this subject.

The angles of your U-joints(pinion/driveshaft and t-case/driveshaft) need to be within +/- 3* of each other.

If running a DC shaft you need to be within +/- 1* on the pinion/driveshaft angle, and it does not matter(to a point) what the angle is on the t-case/driveshaft angle.

Now here is my experience. I have installed OME lifts and have notice that when a heavy, and sometimes a medium duty lift is installed, the rear of the vehicle in relation to the front is higher than the same relationship in a stock configuration. (ie. stock 19" to frame rear 20" front, lifted 22" rear 22" front.) This means is that the pinion/driveshaft angle increases and the t-case/driveshaft angle decreases.

The only way to solve this angle issue is to; one, rotate the pinion down to match the driveshaft/t-case angle; two, lower the rear crossmember mount under the trans/t-case to match the pinion/driveshaft angle; three, run a softer set of springs(in the rear) to decrease the overall height of the rear of the vehicle; or four, carry a lot of payload like OME states per type of spring ordered, this will lower the back end and therefore put the angles back to specificationis.

The front angles are usually corrected with castor correction bushing that can be ordered with the kit, but if the angles are off, the same does apply with the front as does the rear.

Don't discount the rear driveshaft as a possible problem. The sound from the rear will resinate through the cab causing it to be impossible to pinpoint which is vibrating, also since they mount to the same location(the t-case) the sound realistically could be comming from the same location.

Check the angles on both the front and rear of both of the shafts and compare. Post the results, I would like to see what the angles are at. If some one would like to check the stock angles, for comparason, and post them that would be great as well.
Click to expand...
 
Post up any other valuable links as well.
 
Also, if someone wants to write-up the troubleshooting guide for the larger lifts or other info, we can expand this. I will create a whole new thread so we can cut this into more pieces and reorganize anyway that makes sense
 
TTT- Gee all these 80's owners and no one wants to help complete this thread?
 
I think i have, about three times. THree of those links, i started the posts and they go on for 5 pages. . .
 
concretejungle said:
I think i have, about three times. Three of those links, i started the posts and they go on for 5 pages. . .
Click to expand...

I was just trying to make it more concise and provide an order for troubleshooting, but maybe that was wishful thinking on my part.

I wasn't looking for someone to write it, but to provide some opinions, suggestions and maybe a little input.
 
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