2003 Tacoma vibration at 20mph

I know, it's been covered but mostly on 2nd gens. Bought truck March 3 and loving it so much more than the 2014 so I'm kind of a new taco owner. Truck has had it's frame replaced 4 months ago under previous owner and I'm not running any lift or larger tires.

Vibration occurs as I'm accelerating/ decelerating in gear around 15-25mph and goes away at higher speeds or at the very least becomes a lot less noticeable in the steering wheel. Vibration can be felt most through steering wheel which starts oscillating.

Going to climb under the truck and start jiggling center carrier bearing and u joints but wanted to know if you guys had any advice. I've seen threads where people put spacers to drop the center bearing but that as in the second gen forums and so I don't know if it applies.

 

Ha! Found the culprit. Carrier bearing was holding on by 1/4" of one bolt. Second bolt was missing and the thing was holding onto the frame mounts for dear life. Anyone have anything like this happen to them?

 

I would replaced the CB at least as that much being all out of whack im sure trashed it internally.

Look at greasing your ujoints as well.

If you have a small lift its recommended that you add some sort of spacer to lower the CB for a better straight angle to the rear axle as well.

 

Be thankful it didnt fall off while driving..

A new drive shaft from the dealer is $1200

However a used one from a pick n pull wreck yard would be cheaper.

 

probably just forgot to torque it down when they were doing the frame swap. replace the bolts using thread lock and torque it down to specs.

if I were you I would spend an hour under the truck checking every bolt that connects anything to the frame because while this might be the only think left loose, you cant just assume that, so recheck all of their work for your own safety.

thank god it didn't fall out and do serious damage to your truck or maybe cause an accident.

 

I do love it when the best case scenario is the yoke sliding out of the tranny and either crushing the shaft or ripping the rear wheels out from the bottom of the truck.

Yeah going to take a look at the universal joints this Saturday and see if there are zerg fittings for greasing purposes. The center carrier I will postpone until I see it requires replacement. Right now I'm back to being vibration and clunk free. ]

Legit... good thing I decided to crawl under there one day early to scope shit out. Wow.