Sorry if you feel I haven't kept up, but the vibration your are chasing is this new from the clutch or has been there before the clutch. I am not sure why you changed your CA's, also I think 1.5 - 2 degrees doesn't sound right. Also when you changed the CA's you do mess with the alignment so make sure you check that again.
lastly if the vibration was from when you changed the clutch I would start with things you touched first. Drivelines, tires, trans mount, engine mounts etc?
Is the whole jeep vibrating or do you feel it more in your stick and pedals?
Also hopefully this makes you feel better a little, but we have all gone through this. I mean all of us that are good at working on our own stuff. This is called learning. It is frustrating and you seem to be learning a lot, but once you get this tackled, you will be happy. Or if you want to avoid the frustration you can pay to have it done.
You are working hard but it does get easier, and pretty soon everything will be working top notch again and you will know when anything is out of sorts and you will be able to figure it out quicker next time. Hang in there, I know it is tough but you are learning a lot and saving a lot of money.
Also don't think if you took it to a shop it would be less frustrating. What would it be like if you took it to a shop and they gave it back to you with vibrations. Chances are they would make you prove the vibrations weren't there first and be charging you labor to try and figure it out. Believe me that is more frustrating than this.
Hang in there you got this!
Vibration - I had recently changed the centerball yoke and pressed out the rear axle pinion u-joint, thinking I knew the rear most ujoint size in the rear DS. Well it turned out that I did not actually know what size it was - hence the scramble for the Precision 353 yesterday (similar to a Spicer 5-134X). The rear ujoint was binding a little, it felt ok when I pressed the old one back in, but the bottom line is there are no vibes with the rear DS removed now.
UCA adjustments - I had tweaked and tuned my rear DS vibrations several months back after swapping in a Daystar from the broken stock mount. I had everything dialed, once I had adjusted the UCAs to compensate for the difference in height. My driveline was perfectly smooth before - now it vibrates a little in 2nd - 4th gear with the rear shaft attached.
Exhaust - I am going to disconnect my pre cats today or whenever it stops raining. It was HARD to reconnect the exhaust hanger to the main cat area from the trans bracket hanger. I cant help but feel as if there is:
(1) significant tension being applied to the transmission and tcase assembly from my hanger. The assembly also looks to have moved ever so slightly from their position on my Rubicon Express skid plate (the studs going through the skid plate seem pushed back slightly).
(2) Misalignment with my pre cats to the headers. I should have unbloted them in retrospect, I did not and it caused an exhaust leak.
(3) Three of the four top side header bolts were loose. The headers and header bolts are new, I replaced it two months ago. I am pretty sure they were all tight prior to this clutch job.
Bottom line:
- I have an exhaust leak, my Jeep sounds like absolute shit.
- The clutch seems a little noisey too
- There is a driveline vibration as I have described
- My pinion angle was (MINUS) -3 to -3.5 degrees, after last night's UCA adjustment, it is now -1.5 to -2 degrees. I have a double cardan CV driveshaft
- I also re-greased my rear DS slip yoke, but it seemed stiffer than usual - pretty hard to stretch when I reconnect to rear DS to the tcase and rear axle pinion (I don't know if thisbis an issue or not?)
Thanks again
