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Engine & DrivetrainDiscussions about the engine and drivetrain of your vehicle.
This is a discussion thread titled "driveshaft lowering", within the Engine & Drivetrain forum, part of the Technical & Vehicle Assistance Forums category.
ok my driveshaft has some form of wobbling problem. its aligned its lubed and its balanced. it seems like as soon as my truck goes into overdrive (around 46-49mph) it has a wobble. i origionally thought that this was mabey my trany,but if i switch out of overdrive or put it in neutral it still wobbles.its not my wheels or tires because i bought new tires and it still did it, then i borrow different wheels and it still wobbled at the same speed. it does not seem to wobble if i have a load in the bed(like my 4-wheeler) so ive come to conclude that i need to lower my driveshaft at the carrier bearing by about an inch. i did this on my jeep cherokee with a 3" lift and it made it run as smoth as silk. has anyone tried this??? oh yea i have a 2000 tundra limited 4x4 trd with a leveling kit in the front(wobbled before the leveling kit)
the front was raised about 1.75" in the front and trd leafs were installed in the back. like i said the only things left i think it could be are the tranny mounts or just the drivesaft angle. and the trany mounts seem fine. if i look at my driveshaft it is at a slight angle from the transfer case to the carrier bearing, then from the carrier bearing to the rear dif it is much steeper. it just seem that if i lower the angle from the carrier bearing to the diff (I.e. 1" or 1/2" spacer at the carrier bearing) it would resolve my problem.
I cant belive none of you guys have tried this with all of the vibrations we have on this forum.
Finally, someone else has described the exact same wobble I have been talking about since joining this forum. I'm not saying I'm happy that you have the wobble too, but maybe with a little synergy we can get this figured out.
My truck does it regardless of what gear it is in, had the tires replaced, road forced balanced and driveshaft lubed. Nothing has helped and the frustrating part is it will not do it all the time. However, as the mileage increases (currently at 18,000) it happens more and more. It begins right after the torque converter locks up around 41 mph. This must be a coincidence because when shifted into neutral, the wobble is still there.
Last week, I took the rear drive shaft off and drove the truck in "front wheel drive". Guess what, the vibration was gone. I've tried to get a couple of dealerships to look at the driveshaft, but I guess it is just more profitable and easier for them to change oil than to actually look into a customer's problem. Also, I believe they think I’m describing the 30 to 40 mph vibration that is caused by the front differential, which is now documented in the 2003 owner’s manual.
Bringing my rambling to a close, I have thought about using some washers to lower my rear driveshaft too. I just haven't had the time to do it yet. If you get around to trying it before me, let me know how it goes. By the way my truck is a stock 2002 4x4, except for the TRD add-a-leafs, but the wobble was there before them.
yep that is the exact same as mine. hopefully i will be able to machine out some spacers this weekend and try that out. i will let you know. i hoe there is no known problem with doing this on a tundra!1
I have a 2000 Limited Access Cab TRD W/ 1" front spacers and Daystar add-a-Leafs in the rear. I too have the exact wooble in my truck as described below. It started the day I picked up my truck from getting the Add-a-leafs installed.
I had a toyota dealer install them and they worked with me in trying to figure out the cause of the noise and the rumble. I agree that it is in the drive shaft. My dealer went to the trouble of replacing my transfer case and rear end untill they decided that they just could not fix it.
It was strange because the service manager also removed the drive shaft and drove on the front and reported to me that there was noise more noise. They then sent the driveshaft out to be balanced but it had no effect. In short (if that is possible now) I would be very interested to hear about any lowering of the driveshaft and if it "fixed" it.
well i finally got around to making a 1" driveshaft spacer and installing it. it did indeed get rid of my 43-48 mph wobble but i got a new problem. now when i first start accelerating a get a vibration for the first couple of seconds. so i come to conclude that this driveshaft angle does have a correlation to our problems. my next question is do you guys think i should try making a spacer more that one 1" or start experimenting with one less than 1".?? thanks for the input.
p.s. it was so smooth now that it didn't even feel like I was driving my truck!1 now if I can get rid of this low speed problem id be set!!
Originally posted by trdcrome well i finally got around to making a 1" driveshaft spacer and installing it. it did indeed get rid of my 43-48 mph wobble but i got a new problem. now when i first start accelerating a get a vibration for the first couple of seconds. so i come to conclude that this driveshaft angle does have a correlation to our problems. my next question is do you guys think i should try making a spacer more that one 1" or start experimenting with one less than 1".?? thanks for the input.
p.s. it was so smooth now that it didn't even feel like I was driving my truck!1 now if I can get rid of this low speed problem id be set!!
I checked the angles on my driveshaft recently, and if anything, the center carrier bracket needs to move up, not down more. From my reading on the subject, the double-cardan joint is where all of the angles need to take place on this type of driveshaft setup. On a one-piece driveshaft, the angle at the transmission/transfer case should match the angle at the differential to cancel out vibrations. On our 2-piece driveshaft setup with the double-cardan joint in the middle, the angle on the U-joint at the transfer case output should be near 0 degrees and the likewise, the angle at the rear differential should be at or near 0 degrees to minimize vibration.
On mine, the front U-joint is angled down about 1 degree and the rear is off by about 2 degrees (no lift on mine). Since I can't change the angle of the transfer case output shaft, I need to keep the carrier bracket as high as possible. My rear U-joint at the differential has about 2 degrees on it. The way to fix this is to put a wedge of the proper angle between the axle housing and the leaf spring pack. If you have lifted the rear of your truck, this angle will be worse and is likely contributing to vibrations.
What you have done with the 1 inch spacer on the center support bearing is reduce the angle at the rear of the driveshaft and likely improved that vibration, but you have increased the angle at the transfer case output shaft, and likely created a new source of vibration.
that is very true!! what if i lower the trasnsmission mount I.E the crossmamber by 1" ?? thats exactly wat i did with my jeep. it is very common place to do this on cherokee's but i have never heard of it on a tundra. do that that will help?? will it hurt anything??
Maybe you lookng in the wrong place. Try inspecting the u joints for excessive wear. They might have a little affect but I would check to make sure the carrier bearing is in good condition.
Well that only thing I can think of that would cause the angles of the drive shafts to be off between the tranny and diff would be the carrier bearing. New they are straight. There has to be a reason yours isnt.
Originally posted by arkie6 On a one-piece driveshaft, the angle at the transmission/transfer case should match the angle at the differential to cancel out vibrations. On our 2-piece driveshaft setup with the double-cardan joint in the middle, the angle on the U-joint at the transfer case output should be near 0 degrees and the likewise, the angle at the rear differential should be at or near 0 degrees to minimize vibration.
That formula applies when the driveshaft has a double-cardian (CV) at one end and a conventional U joint at the other. The problem is the Tundra rear shaft has the CV in the middle and a u-joint at each end.
Temporarily ignore the carrier bearing. Look at the driveshaft: U-joint at tranny, U-joint at diff, CV in the middle. CV's "cancel each other out" because it is essentially 2 u-joints back-to-back. If the Tundra rear shaft only had one u-joint then the proper setup would be to have close to a 0 deg. angle on the u-joint. But there are two u-joints. That means the two u-joints must cancel each other out -- ie run at the same angle -- and the CV joint should run at a 0 deg angle.
I know this is confusing, but if you carefully think about it, it makes sense. I had the same type of vibration after I installed my RoadMaster rear spring. The vibe went away when I had a 1000# or more in the bed. I tried lowering the carrier bearing first, as well as aligning the shaft perfectly straight (I used a string stretched from tranny to rear end). I was making the same assumption that the rear end needed to be turned up to a 0 angle because of the CV joint. I added a pair of degree shims to do this. It made it worse. As I lay under the truck it finally hit me -- the CV joint doesn't count, what counts are the 2 u-joints -- the 2 u-joints (tranny & rear end) needed to be at the SAME angle. This meant (for me) angling the rear end DOWN, not up. I reversed the degree shims on the rear spring mounts to angle the diff down 2.5deg. Problem solved, no more vibration!
BTW, the front half of the spring (the end WITHOUT the shackle) acts kind of like a control arm and the rear axle will travel mostly on an arc pivoting on the front spring bolt. This means when you raise the rear, the rear axle pinion will naturally roll upward, reducing the u-joint angle. On a CV + 1 u-joint driveshaft this would be desireable. On the Tundra (CV + 2 u-joints) it's exactly the opposite of what you want.
Originally posted by Mudog715 That formula applies when the driveshaft has a double-cardian (CV) at one end and a conventional U joint at the other. The problem is the Tundra rear shaft has the CV in the middle and a u-joint at each end.
Thanks for the clarification. I don't have any noticable driveshaft vibrations, so I haven't researched the subject that deeply. What you said makes sense now that I think about it.
By the way, how do you like your Roadmaster Active Suspension? Isn't it adjustable? Can you get any lift out of it? How harsh is the ride when unloaded compared to stock? After installing some custom 3/4" thick spacers on my front springs, I now need to raise the back end about 1/2" to level it out.
driveshaft lowering
exactly
