Drive Shaft Vibrations Solved Step-by-Step

I used a laser level to align my zerk fittings/DS, others have used string.

 

i did check with mine last night. shit. how can the carrier be off to one side over 1/4"? i dont think i have that much side adjustment.

 

The ones i ordered are 2” wide and 4.75” long and the hole was 3/8” but ended up drilling it out a sliver.
He has a how to determine shims on his site, but its easy enough to get under the trk and measure the mating surface of the axle that the spring pack sits on

 

I found that most vibrations can be attributed with worn driveline components. Most people don't notice it with stock suspension until they lift.

A worn carrier bearing or u joint can feel exponentially worse after a lift. Most of the time I will replace all u joints and carrier bearing and work from there.

I have a 3" lift front and rear with only a carrier bearing drop and it seems smooth. I added 2.5* axle shims for good measure but not much change was noticeable.

 

This was my primary issue. My DS slip joint was completely worn out. It’s my opinion that incorrect DS angles contributed, if not caused that issue.

 

Then you haven't seen mine. Same deal. It ticked me off. I had a thrust angle to my truck so I ratcheted the rear axle to help remove the thrust and the offset at the CB. Currently about 2mm offset at the carrier bearing so I'm going to calculate the compound angle effect of this and see if it is a big deal or not. On my other truck I had the same issue and ended up notching the mounting slots of the CB to allow pushing it to one side. Maybe not the best but...

 

today i had to move my carrier about 3/8" to the drivers side to make my driveshaft straight. signifigant improvement. used a string line, then laser to double check.

 

Kind of stinks that we even have to do this since Toy ditched the double cardan joint and can't even get their frames square thus leaving it up to us to solve their problems...sigh.

 

i completely agree. i probably have 100 hours of fussing with it and its still not done.

 

some thin stainless washers make good fine tuning. i had to drop my carrier even more than the lift setup it came with. im down almost an inch. fwiw spc makes quality steel shims in a variety of sizes with u-notches. rape at 80$ a pair though.

 

be aware when searching vibes and noise its not all about angles. i found all my angles and such to be correct. still bad noises. bad front wheel bearings at 53k. 1300.00 including an alignment. owch.

 

I have an 06 DBCL. Was getting some vibes @ 55 mph and up so I did some research and decided it would be worth replacing my carrier bearing. Truck rode like new for 2 days and this morning it feels worse than it was before. Strange thing is it rides nice until 'it' heats up and then it intermittently vibrates. So that leads me to believe one of my U Joints is seizing after it heats up but I'm confused because when the drive shaft was detached I inspected my U joints and they appeared to be just fine, especially since they are not even a year old. Also, my truck is stock so I am not lead to believe it is an issue with DS angles. Anyone have this issue or something similar? I'm scratching my head wonder what the eff is going on.

 

Does this approach work on 1st Gens with a Double cardan driveshaft? I seem to be unable to squelch the vibes on mine with a 3" lift.
I take you 2nd gen guys don't have a DC in your two piece driveshafts??

 

It still should work. I have a 2 piece drive shaft in my 2nd gen DCLB, and all 2nd gen DCSB have a 2 piece as well.

 

Ok ok.... so finally bought a digital angle finder... Have had horrible takeoff vibes, worst from a full stop. Have wheeler's aal in the back, 884s up front with ome nitrochargers all around. So zero on rear flange of tcase, this is now 0 degrees. First half of ds is 4.7 degrees down from there, second is 4.9 degrees down from tcase flange. My diff is -1.7, meaning its tilted towards the ground more than the tcase???? I have 2 degree shims for the leaf pack ready to go in. Will this help?? Have already applied the ome carrier bearing drop, seemed to make little difference. About to shot a video of whats happening under there.... Looking for advice!!!

 

Yeah so your pinion flange on the diff. is not parallel with your flange on the transmission. With that flange being off by 1.7° and your second drive shaft being 4.9° your rear U joint is operating at 6.6°. U joints are suppose to be less than 3°. 2° shims may help but you'll be 4.6° which is still over the 3°

 

So 2 degree shims will pitch my pinion up to be more parallel with tcase flange, that should help. But how can I correct the driveline more??? Sounds like I should remove the carrier drop, and maybe even pitch pinion up more??? That would reduce fist driveline angle, but ujoint to pionon would still seem high???

 

Just ordered the 3 degree shims from toytec as the 2 degree ones I had didn't include new leaf pack bolts, and I think it would have a hard time being secured, will get there new ones on. Measurements I gave were wrong, didn't rezero on second driveshaft before pinion, but I know it's off!!! Will post back with new measurements..

 

Well well well.... Installed the 3degree toytec shims tonight, and ended up taking off the carrier bearing drop from OME. tcase to first DS 2.9 degrees, tcase to 2nd DS 4.7 degrees ( 1.8 degrees from first DS), and pinon now 0.4 degrees from second DS. Night and day difference. Took reading through this thread a few times. Take off vibes are all but gone, smooth as glass at freeway speed. Took a while to understand whats going on. You all helped though, cant thank you enough. Just needed an hour to myself away from work, wife, everything else. Thank you @TscotR214 for creating this thread, and to the countless others, @TacomaWilly for your guidance. Good luck everyone, on your driveshaft vibe journey.

 

Glad you got er all fixed up!

Cheers,

Willy