Sloppy Carrier Bearing Temporary Fix

A couple weeks ago, I started having some worsening vibration issues with the Tacoma. They were really bad between 15 - 20 MPH and again around 35 MPH. What was weird was if I gave it the beans and accelerated quickly through those MPH ranges, nothing happened, no vibration. It would always shake when decelerating through those MPH ranges also.

In an effort to diagnose the problem, I crawled underneath to see what's what. No wheel bearing issues, U joints are all tight and have been greased regularly but that carrier bearing just didn't look right. The rubber around the bearing had softened, letting the drive shaft settle toward the bottom of the carrier assembly rather than centered as it should be. Without applying much force, I could move the shaft and bearing upward a good amount (seemed like excessive play up and down). I could shift the shaft so it was centered in the carrier assembly but could not press it any higher, the rubber on the upper half of the carrier assembly was still very firm.

Since I've never dealt with U-joints, and don't really want to anytime soon (although I know it's now inevitable that I'm going to be required to in the fairly near future), I decided to just flip the carrier bearing 180 degrees. To my surprise, my cob job fix seems to be working. Most of the vibration is gone. I can still feel a very slight vibration at the same MPH ranges but it's greatly reduced and a passenger likely wouldn't even notice them where as before, they were pretty obnoxious.

I just thought I'd pass my experience along. It took me all of 5 minutes and I have no idea how much time it has bought me before I'll be forced to change the bearing assembly out but it seems to be working and I haven't noticed any side effects. I just did the flip on Sunday and have about 125 miles on it so far in various driving conditions (stop and go to highway to back roads).

 

There is a sizeable thread on that very fix , I believe it's called " Fixed my driveline vibration for free " or something along those lines

 

Damn... guess I'll just take my thread and go home then




I was reading through a more recent vibration thread and was lead to believe that my vibrations were caused by the rear engine mount (the one the TSB replaces). In an effort to avoid buying parts, I tried flipping the carrier bearing and it actually worked. I don't think I actually 'fixed' anything though, I'd imagine I'm going to be facing a carrier bearing replacement in the near future once the other side of the rubber bushing wears out. Here's the other thread I was reading and found interesting:
http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/2nd-gen-tacomas/212814-vibrations-observations-conclusions-etc.html

I found the thread you mentioned also, OZ:
http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/2nd-gen-tacomas/153050-just-fixed-driveline-vibration-free.html

Seems my reasoning for it fixing my vibrations might be a little off... I'll have to check my angles now and see if I should be running shims. Thanks for the post