I think drive shaft noise

Hi Everyone, I'm hoping for some input on a noise I am hearing when I let off the gas at higher speeds. I have a 2011 Tacoma 4x4 regular cab 4cyl with the Old Man Emu 2" suspention 885 coils and Dakar rear springs and ended up with a little over 3" of lift. I added the Toytec 3 degree shims but still hearing a buzzing noise from the back of the cab which I think is the drive shaft where it leaves the transfer case. The truck only has 1,600 miles. My installer looked at the drive shaft and said the angle didn't look too bad but he is not a Toyota guru like some of you guys.

 

The only way to know what your driveline angles are is to measure them. 3 degrees or less is the key.
This website will explain:
http://www.4x4wire.com/toyota/tech/driveline/

 

I have noise at 50-60, louder on acceleration, but I haven't put in the shims yet. Might have to do the cv driveshaft too

 

Just read the article you put in your last post and realized you want almost 0 degree angle at differential end of drive shaft and I still have some angle with the 3 degree toytec shims. I just spoke to the Toytec guy and he said they have 4 degree shims which would be their largest degree and he also recomended greasing the Ujoints and sometimes eliminates vibrations and problems so going to try that now. He also said I could remove a leaf from my Dakar leaf packs to lower the back of the truck some as a last resort

 

3 degrees is optimal for driveline angles. The 3 degree shim under the leaf clocks the pinion up 3 degrees while decreasing the angle on the driveline. It may not be enough to bring the angle back to optimal.
It may take installing a cv driveshaft to get rid of the vibes. I am not looking forward to doing this, since I have the same setup, minus the shims.

 

I just greased the crap out of my Ujoints and going to take a ride. Since the truck is so new it has never been serviced and the Ujoints never greased. If the grease didn't do it I'm ordering the 4 degree shims and that should get my drive shaft pretty straight into the differential and straigher at the top. CV drive shafts are for much bigger angles than we are dealing with here and big bucks

 

What's the link for the 4 degree shims, and what are your current driveline angles?

 

I called Toytec directly, they don't list the 4 degree on their web site since they sell mainly 3 degree shims. 29 bucks plus shipping

 

You can't fix anything without measuring your DL angles. You also need the angles of the output shaft of the Tcase and the pinion angle.

Shim the pinion if necessary to match the angle of the Tcase so that the two are parallel. Then drop the carrier bearing so that the first shaft is within 1-1/2 degrees of the second. Vibrations gone. Mine is vibration free from take off to 85mph even with 4.56 gears

Randomly throwing parts at it is more likely to make it worse than anything. Mine didn't even need a pinion shim. Yours probably doesn't either.

Edit: Actually what I said applies to 2 piece drive shafts, and I don't know if the single cabs have one or two. It it's one shaft with conventional Ujoints then the tcase and pinion should still align as I said. If it's one piece with a CV joint at the top then the pinion should align with the driveshaft. Sorry if I confused.

 

The grease in the U Joints seemed to help, I'll drive it for a few more days and see how it is. Regular cabs don't have carrier bearings so shimming them isn't even an option. Unfortunately your only option is to shim the rear axle or lower your truck since you can't lower the transfer case

 

Yeah, sorry, I just edited mine while you were posting. Do you have a CV at the top or two conventional Ujoints?

 

I went through this too. The shims don't help. Only thing that cured the noise was taking the lift back off and settling for a leveled look. The shims only straighten out the shaft where it meets the rear end. You still have an angle where it meets the transfer case. If you read up on it, you need to have opposite angles at the rear end vs. the transfer case. Having close to no angle at the rear end doesn't help you. I think it's mostly a problem for the regular cabs due to the short driveline and lack of carrier bearing.

 

Iirc, tacomas originally came with the double cardan driveshaft.

 

When I installed the lift I did have some drive line vibration durring acceleration. When I added the 3 degree shims it did pretty much eliminate the vibration. The problem I've been experiencing now was a buzzing sound as best described from I think the U joint next to the transfer case. After greasing up the u joints upon Toytec's advise and driving the truck I could not get it to make the noise anymore but only got up to 60 mph. I'm going to drive further and at a higher speed tomorrow to know for shure. Keeping my fingers crossed !!!

 

I would urge you to buy an inexpensive digital protractor and measure the components so you know what is going on. Make changes as I described and it will be fixed right. What you are doing is shifting the vibration from one joint to another. Even if it seems to go away it is probably still vibrating at a lower level. It can affect your ujoints and the bearings in the Tcase and Diff. I seriously doubt the 3 degree shim is buying you anything. It's your truck though, your choice.