rraulston
TJ Enthusiast
You had your rear rebalanced like my front. What are the chances you need a new rear driveshaft?? Just sayin!!
Oscillating Vibration
- Thread starter d.markowski
- Start date
Vtx531
TJ Addict
You seem pretty sure that you found the problem but don’t get too excited until you try out the new one!
What do you guys think? Might that be my problem? Never used a dial indicator before but something definitely seems out of whack there!
rraulston
TJ Enthusiast
something is way off. You need to do this but rotate the assembly by hand. Its hard to tell how much of the run out is actual vs. needle bounce. Also the indicator should be perpendicular to the shaft, not at an angle. It appears the shaft has a bit of wobble.... Interesting...
rraulston
TJ Enthusiast
You are raining on my parade!!! The new one will be installed on Friday and I will let you know!!
Vtx531
TJ Addict
Hoping for the best...!
That wobble in the video looks good to me. You are about .010. My manual for 2002 says .020 tolerance at the ends of the shaft and .025 at the middle. So think you can safely cross that one off your list!
Congratulations, now you are making some progress. Given that you said it started when you installed the sye and driveshaft, + the fact it went away when you removed the rear driveshaft, I think it is the angle that is off.
You said tried pinion 2 degrees high, 1 degree high, zero, 1 degree low? Maybe try 2 degrees low and 3 degrees low...?
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I’ll try -3 and -2 too. Driveshaft shop made the vibration worse btw. Wonder if it could be a faulty driveshaft somehow. Ughhh
((
rraulston
TJ Enthusiast
Well.............................................................................. The new front drive shaft did not fix the problem. WTF.... Remove the front and it all 100% goes away. Put the new one (or the old freshly rebuilt one) on and its back. What the hell does that mean?? Could warped front axels be transferring vibrations through the drive shaft into the cab? I just rebuilt the transfer case. New bearings and all.. Pull the front axels and drive it? Wheel bearings are new, but if they were bad, it would do it without the driveline installed.... thoughts?
Vtx531
TJ Addict
Sorry to hear that- I know how frustrating it is.
Assuming your t-case rebuild was all done properly, I think we can narrow it down to:
Pinion angle
Control arm bushings
Control arm bolt torque
Pinion bearings
Pinion preload
Pinion yoke runout
Ujoint slop
I don’t think it would be anything past the pinion because any of those items (ie axle shaft, wheel bearings) would be vibrating (shaking) at a much lower frequency similar to tires being out of balance.
I would start out my measuring runout of the driveshaft at the front, middle, and rear while installed. That should rule out yoke runout at the axle and tcase, ujoint runout that could be caused from the caps being too loose and also the ujoint straps. Is there sidetoside play of the ujoint when sitting in the yoke?
crewchieh25
New Member
Add me to the list. My vibration was at 45 to 60. Balanced tires, new front hubs, new SYE. My 3rd rear drive shaft is the best of the 3 I tried.
Any chance you can mount a go-pro under there to get a real time image of what the hell is causing it? Keep moving the camera until you can see what's moving? Even if you have to go buy one its gotta be cheaper than throwing more and more cash at it. Or even find another front axle you could install? This is gonna be either an "holy
! That could have killed me" or a "holy! How could that cause it!"
! That could have killed me" or a "holy! How could that cause it!"
rraulston
TJ Enthusiast
So next weekend, I am going to put it up on my car lift and in 4wd and run it. Ill do a video. Yolk runout is what I will be looking for. I dont know if I can spin it up to 55mph in 4wd. Thats where it starts....
rraulston
TJ Enthusiast
ok so we are back at it. Took a little break to build an off-road trailer. Came out quite nice, anyways, I removed the new front drive shaft and the vibrations are gone. I picked up a dial indicator and mount today and will check the runout. By eye, it looks like the yolk on the transfer case is off center. Ill know more tomorrow.
rraulston
TJ Enthusiast
OK so I used my dial indicator to check runout. At the differential I have .002. in the middle I have .004 and on the transfer end I have .015. I removed the driveshaft and cant find out why there is .015. Its a brand new Tom Woods Driveshaft. My old drive shaft vibrated as well. My next step is to remove the driveline with Xfer case yolk and take it to the shop to measure. With the front DL disconnected at the diff and strapped to the frame, there is zero vibration. I will keep it like this and when off-roading, I can reinstall it in 5 minutes.... Could my xfer case yolk be machined out of round??? What a pain...
Good work...saw a post once where someone indicated a yoke was out some ...keep us posted.
rraulston
TJ Enthusiast
Aaaand I'm back.... With news.... For the last several months, I have been driving with the front drive shaft disconnected. I got to where I could re-install it in about 5 minutes so it wasn't a big deal. A few posts earlier I indicated the new Tom Woods drive shaft had runout. I dove back into it last weekend and removed the drive shaft. I used a dial indicator on the front transfer case yolk and read .055 runout. So my thoughts were maybe the front yolk was out of round. I called Tom Woods and explained the situation. They said they could machine one up? and send it out. Ordered on Monday, received on Thursday. Installed this morning and guess what.... NO MORE VIBRATION! I mean really???! If it came from the factory like that, it never ran smooth. Here are the photos of the old one. Its a Spicer unit. What's interesting is the seal rides on the yolk dust shield and not the shaft. One last thing, anyone have the rear vibration damper that comes on a 241 transfer case?? Asking for a friend!! Thanks...
I tried all of these things literally and actually had issues like a bent main shaft in the t case and a loose front pinion flange from the nut loosening. I have front and rear Tom woods shafts and SYE. I could never get it to drive without vibes over 70mph with the front shaft in. Glad you found an issue. I went the hub conversion route. I spent more trying to find the problem than I did on the hub conversion but I’m stubborn I guess? Atleast my jeep coasts down hill now that’s nice for traffic.