The OFFICIAL clunk/thunk driveshaft thread

[liveoak]

Should I take apart the slip joint and clean it out?

yes, that is the correct way to do it. filling the tube with grease and expecting it to find it's way to push new grease through every spline is a pipe dream for this vehicle. It is more work, but cleaning and greasing the splines by hand was the fix for me. I do not use the zerk fitting on the slip yoke to grease the splines on my 100. Many 4runner owners with similar AWD/4WD systems like ours do the same. some even drill out the zerk to alleviate the pressure buildup in the slip yoke.

 

[aharlan001]

yes, that is the correct way to do it. filling the tube with grease and expecting it to find it's way to push new grease through every spline is a pipe dream for this vehicle. It is more work, but cleaning and greasing the splines by hand was the fix for me. I do not use the zerk fitting on the slip yoke to grease the splines on my 100. Many 4runner owners with similar AWD/4WD systems like ours do the same. some even drill out the zerk to alleviate the pressure buildup in the slip yoke.

So I did the driveshaft grease manually off the vehicle about 500 miles ago. Clearly this has lasted longer than previous attempts pumping at the zerk. Hopefully this is the solution. We will see how it goes over the next 2k miles. There was quite a bit of old grease in there which I cleaned out... the spines all looked well greased but clearly cleaning by hand and greasing by hand does offer an advantage.

 

[boobird]

So I did the driveshaft grease manually off the vehicle about 500 miles ago. Clearly this has lasted longer than previous attempts pumping at the zerk. Hopefully this is the solution. We will see how it goes over the next 2k miles. There was quite a bit of old grease in there which I cleaned out... the spines all looked well greased but clearly cleaning by hand and greasing by hand does offer an advantage.

Is this the front or rear slip joint?
What did you use to clean it out

 

[Greenbean]

Can ask how hard of a time you guys are having getting the drive shaft bolts off? Using impact universals and a wrench to hold the backside?
Cros feet by chance?

TIA

I assume your marking the driveshafts orientation but is it important to mark the bolts and locations or is that to much OCD?

 

[aharlan001]

Is this the front or rear slip joint?
What did you use to clean it out

Rear, from what I understand the rear is typically the problem.

 

[aharlan001]

Is this the front or rear slip joint?
What did you use to clean it out

I cleaned it out best I could with a plastic pry tool scooping out old grease then an old toothbrush. Shot some parts cleaner in there to rinse then let dry before reassembly. This is all on the female end. The male end is partially hidden so I just cleaned that up best I could with the toothbrush.

 

[aharlan001]

Can ask how hard of a time you guys are having getting the drive shaft bolts off? Using impact universals and a wrench to hold the backside?
Cros feet by chance?

TIA

I assume your marking the driveshafts orientation but is it important to mark the bolts and locations or is that to much OCD?

Getting the bolts off is a real pita especially if you keep them torqued appropriately. Make sure you give yourself plenty of room getting the car in the air a bit on stands. My impact wouldnt even do it. I ended up needing a long cheater bar on my socket wrench. Also mark orientation at the slip joint. I see no need to mark each bolt.

 

[gray rider]

I have the clunk when I back off the accelerator (downhill) and get back in the throttle going up the next hill or even after the grade flattens out.

My thunk first appeared after transmission fluid hose grenaded (another story, unrelated to LC reliability) and the next shop guy replaced the line and re-filled the fluid. I don't know if this was related to the clunk?

Makes me wonder about replacement vehicles based on no way to remove the clunk per this thread. Or maybe throw a manual tranny in.....

I might be in the market for a 40 series and also a 10 year old Ford or Chevy v8 pickup. I hope not......

 

[TunaMelt]

Here’s my experience and what was causing mine. I had the clunk when going from R to D and also upon accelerating from a coast sometimes.

I recorded the underside and determined the front driveshaft was rotating about 8th a turn. Spiders were tight. Yoke was tight. I crawled underneath and rotated the shaft manually while holding onto a CV and felt no slop in the front diff since I could feel every small amount of movement in the CV hand. From there I replaced the drive flanges for a super tight zero play fit. Still had the clunk. Figured out it’s the CV’s themselves. It might be due to the front being lifted and the CV angle isn’t stock. Going to lower with the Torsion bars and see if it fixes.

 

[merbesfield]

Here’s my experience and what was causing mine. I had the clunk when going from R to D and also upon accelerating from a coast sometimes.

I recorded the underside and determined the front driveshaft was rotating about 8th a turn. Spiders were tight. Yoke was tight. I crawled underneath and rotated the shaft manually while holding onto a CV and felt no slop in the front diff since I could feel every small amount of movement in the CV hand. From there I replaced the drive flanges for a super tight zero play fit. Still had the clunk. Figured out it’s the CV’s themselves. It might be due to the front being lifted and the CV angle isn’t stock. Going to lower with the Torsion bars and see if it fixes.

I have the clunk thunk like you mentioned, when I back off the throttle and back on again. It was there “before” I raised the front end by cranking my torsion bars so I doubt that’s the cause. What is so frustrating for me is that I know my clunk should be able to be fixed because it is just to much to not be something mechanical and something repairable. It didn’t come this way from new so it is fixable. Question is what the f*#%k is it!

 

[TwistedCon]

I have the clunk thunk like you mentioned, when I back off the throttle and back on again. It was there “before” I raised the front end by cranking my torsion bars so I doubt that’s the cause. What is so frustrating for me is that I know my clunk should be able to be fixed because it is just to much to not be something mechanical and something repairable. It didn’t come this way from new so it is fixable. Question is what the f*#%k is it!

Have the same thing. It's not everytime but about 70% of the time. Also have it about 70% going from R-N-D and vice versa.

This doesn't kill me. What kills me is a clunk I have gotten twice from starting from a stop sign. Car starts to move and then I feel a slight loss of power and RPMs feel the same and then BAM. Huge clunk, car shakes, and starts putting power down then. I'd immediately go to the transmission but because it doesn't happen every time I don't think its that. I also floored the car for the first time tonight from a stop. Everything acted normal besides my rear end wanting to touch the bottom (AHC globes need to be ordered).

 

[spaber05]

Have the same thing. It's not everytime but about 70% of the time. Also have it about 70% going from R-N-D and vice versa.

This doesn't kill me. What kills me is a clunk I have gotten twice from starting from a stop sign. Car starts to move and then I feel a slight loss of power and RPMs feel the same and then BAM. Huge clunk, car shakes, and starts putting power down then. I'd immediately go to the transmission but because it doesn't happen every time I don't think its that. I also floored the car for the first time tonight from a stop. Everything acted normal besides my rear end wanting to touch the bottom (AHC globes need to be ordered).

@TwistedCon : By chance I saw this and recently had a similar issue remedied with our 04 4Runner Limited V8 (same trans as the LC I believe). Coming to a rolling stop or yield (sub 10mph or so), then getting on the power back again, it was almost as if the trans had shifted into neutral, and then would slam back into gear after a tip on the throttle to resume forward movement.

Turns out it was throwing a code for a trans solenoid. Additionally on a side note, the cats were VERY clogged (way down on power) which could have been a contributor. Our mechanic thought that (POSSIBLY) the trans was seeing the throttle position, expecting a LOT of power, but was getting thrown off when there was hardly any, hence acting funky. New cats helped a lot, but trans solenoid seems to have solved the problem completely.

This is all anecdotal, of course, but it sounded similar enough to what you're experiencing to consider the solenoid issue. Hope that helps

 

[FlammableFishie]

I've got a real bad vibration around 30-35mph that shakes the whole dash. I'm thinking it might be u-joints, so I crawled under and did some twisting, pushing, and pulling on the driveshafts. There seems to be *a lot* of play with the rear driveshaft where the flanges on the rear diff and t case move a fair bit before clunking to a stop. I am also experiencing an audible slam when shifting from reverse to drive or vice versa. There also seems to be a fair bit of play when pushing/pulling the ds coming from the slip joint, which I'm not sure if that's normal either.

I don't want to start throwing parts at this without knowing with some certainty what the culprit is, but the vibration worries me and the clunk has never been this bad so I feel it needs to be addressed sooner rather than later. How much play should there be in twisting the rear ds while in park? Could there be something other than u-joints causing the vibration? Is it worth replacing all 4 joints at once or just one or a pair at a time?

Any and all input appreciated!

 

[avdeveloper]

I've got a real bad vibration around 30-35mph that shakes the whole dash. I'm thinking it might be u-joints, so I crawled under and did some twisting, pushing, and pulling on the driveshafts. There seems to be *a lot* of play with the rear driveshaft where the flanges on the rear diff and t case move a fair bit before clunking to a stop. I am also experiencing an audible slam when shifting from reverse to drive or vice versa. There also seems to be a fair bit of play when pushing/pulling the ds coming from the slip joint, which I'm not sure if that's normal either.

I don't want to start throwing parts at this without knowing with some certainty what the culprit is, but the vibration worries me and the clunk has never been this bad so I feel it needs to be addressed sooner rather than later. How much play should there be in twisting the rear ds while in park? Could there be something other than u-joints causing the vibration? Is it worth replacing all 4 joints at once or just one or a pair at a time?

Any and all input appreciated!

when you jack up the rear axle, set the gear and Transfer Case to neutral, when you spin the tires forward then reverse, do you hear the clunk?

 

[Greenbean]

All you guys checking your front flanges/spline engagement?

It’s the source of most of mine, I have new flanges and parts but not the axles yet…
If I lock the CDL it all goes away, lol… because the front can’t “float” in that free play.

YMMV

 

[PabloCruise]

I have had a clunk when going form N to R or D for a while.

What got my attention was when my wife backed out of the garage the other day and I heard a "squeak-squeak" noise.

I crawled under w/ the grease gun and found a little play in the rear shaft, rear u-joint, and a lot of play in the rear shaft splined slip-joint.

Up front, there is play out at the drive flanges.

I started looking at the economics of sending the rear shaft out for service: Rear Driveshaft - Rebuild or Replace? - https://forum.ih8mud.com/threads/rear-driveshaft-rebuild-or-replace.1286750/

 

[PabloCruise]

Also, I attempted to remove the grease nipple for greasing the splines on the rear shaft, none of my small metric sockets had a good fit. Neither did my standards!

I was worried about too much grease in the slip-joint. Do people just go vice-grip to remove that nipple?

 

[Mike NXP]

Also, I attempted to remove the grease nipple for greasing the splines on the rear shaft, none of my small metric sockets had a good fit. Neither did my standards!

I was worried about too much grease in the slip-joint. Do people just go vice-grip to remove that nipple?

You can just press the center in with a small pick and if there is excess pressure it will bleed out.

This is helpful especially for the front driveshaft . If your splines are crusty it won't really pass the seal and you'll see the driveshaft just expand more and more . If you overdue it just press the center of grease fitting and let it bleed out.

I repeated that process a half dozen times over a few hundred miles and now the slip take grease nicely and doesn't just expand the driveshaft

 

[P Hill Up]

First time greaser here. Tried to grease the ujoints and slip yoke this weekend without success. I couldn’t get grease to go into any of the zerks. I thought maybe one or two were bad/clogged, but seems highly unlikely all of them would be. I got the grease gun fitting to go over the zerks and tried twisting it so it was tight, loose, and everything in between, but grease would just come out around the zerk from the grease gun fitting.

I had the vehicle jacked up, the transfer case and gear shifter both in neutral. There was pressure let off the driveline bc i saw the old ring of grease where the slip yoke moved compared to when it has weight on it. I also used a small screw driver to press on the ball bearing in the nipple of the zerks to confirm they would move. No grease came out, so i assume they weren’t overfilled.

2006 lx 470. Ive owned for about 5 months, 2k mi and not done this since I’ve owned it. PO said he was religious about it, so i assume it’s not from a long period without grease. I wanted to do for general maintenance purposes and bc my clunk is getting slowly worse.

Am i doing something wrong? Watched a bunch of videos and i cant see where I’m doing anything different. It’s a borrowed grease gun, but it took the grease fine and new grease was coming out the nozzle. We used it previously to grease a boat trailer bearing.

Thanks for any advice/tips.

 

[aharlan001]

First time greaser here. Tried to grease the ujoints and slip yoke this weekend without success. I couldn’t get grease to go into any of the zerks. I thought maybe one or two were bad/clogged, but seems highly unlikely all of them would be. I got the grease gun fitting to go over the zerks and tried twisting it so it was tight, loose, and everything in between, but grease would just come out around the zerk from the grease gun fitting.

I had the vehicle jacked up, the transfer case and gear shifter both in neutral. There was pressure let off the driveline bc i saw the old ring of grease where the slip yoke moved compared to when it has weight on it. I also used a small screw driver to press on the ball bearing in the nipple of the zerks to confirm they would move. No grease came out, so i assume they weren’t overfilled.

2006 lx 470. Ive owned for about 5 months, 2k mi and not done this since I’ve owned it. PO said he was religious about it, so i assume it’s not from a long period without grease. I wanted to do for general maintenance purposes and bc my clunk is getting slowly worse.

Am i doing something wrong? Watched a bunch of videos and i cant see where I’m doing anything different. It’s a borrowed grease gun, but it took the grease fine and new grease was coming out the nozzle. We used it previously to grease a boat trailer bearing.

Thanks for any advice/tips.

I have struggled with this before. Try using something to push the ball down in the zerk to make sure that is working. Also try holding the gun fitting on the zerk while pumping the grease in.