Drive Shaft Vibrations Solved Step-by-Step

Great, Thanks!

Here are what mine look like. I have all pro expo leafs and camburg spindles. As you can see I'm about 1'' - 1.5'' short.

 

ahh look at the back of your carrier bearing, notice how much its "pulling" it out? first off, that'll wear the rubber quicker. Second, you need to lengthen the 2nd shaft as far as i can tell, but for balancing/equalization reasons they may need to lengthen the front. you shouldnt need much either way, an inch on both should more then cover it. your spacer idea, too, should also be a viable solution.

and on a second glance, that yolk is quite a bit out.. i would try to get that pushed back in further... also to keep debris out of it... scratch the yolk up and its game over for keeping tranny fluid where it needs to be.

 

Alright, Thanks for the input. Ill report back with what the other shop says tomorrow.

 

AHA! I was wondering what that bright glow was in the early morning sky looking east toward Arizona. I thought it was just that big bright glowing thing we call the sun, or maybe some nuclear testing or something. Turns out it was seric007 with a sh*t eating grin on his face FINALLY WAKING UP TO A DAY VIBRATION FREE !!!!!

Congrats bro! Let the madness end! Wahoooooooo!

 

Lol.

 

dude. you have no Freaking IDEA how accurate that is!

 

Seric, you should really open a thread stating exactly what you asked for, what you got, how they did it etc....

I am as fed up as you were, and I'm sure there are many others. I want to be able to walk into a shop and say give me what seric has, here's the details.

And with any hope, I may one day share your sh*t eating grin.

 

you know, thats not a bad idea. i'll have that incoming.. i'll be snappin some better shots this weekend.

 

If anyone in Houston is looking to have their drive shaft modified you have to check out these guys:

http://www.aaecustoms.net/

They have awesome fab and drive shaft skills. They build some sweet rock crawlers too!

 

Since we're making recommendations.... in San Jose Ca area

http://www.sb-driveline.us/

Built mine for me, took 2 days, cost $1000 because I had a complete duplicate made, would have been less had I dropped my old shaft off for modifications (hard to drop off a driveshaft on a CBR1100XX, my other set of wheels). They've been building driveshafts for me since the 80's.

 

Finally got rid of my vibes! All it took was a set of leaf springs that didnt suck, and one quarter inch cb spacer. I LOVE MY ALCANS! They ride great, and my tc flange to pinion flange were zero after bolting them up. Pinion angle does not change when rocking the truck which is why I could never fix my vibes before my Alcans.
Thank you Scot for doing all of the legwork which brought my vibes to an end, and to Max for your help as well.
I beleve that with springs that don't wrap up so bad a lot of these vibe issues would be non existant.

Hope this helps

 

Wahoo once again! So far, it seems that if you pony up for a complete front and rear lift system including suspension all from the same manufacturer, your vibe issues have already been addressed and corrected by the manufacturer. They've had to deal with the driveshaft angle issues in order to sell their product without every single buyer complaining. For those of us who have either worked on a little by little budget, or tried to get exactly what they wanted for their needs by piece mealing different manufacturers together (like I did), then we're kind of screwed. And when we do things little by little, or part by part, we're totally on our own to reinvent the perfect anti vibe solution. No two trucks are going to be the same, and thus no two solutions will be the same. I solved my vibes a few different ways, while others have zero success. I do know for a fact that a double cardon driveline simply cannot fail to solve the issue, and will save literally hundreds of hours of frustration in exchange for hundreds of dollars. Choice is yours, of course. Try the angles and shims and such first, then consider your lift components. All else fails, and once all lift changes have been made (you're done messing with it), bite the bullet for a double cardon. Depending on your setup, they may need to just modify the rear half, or both the front and rear half of your driveline. If you need a shop recommendation, ask here and someone should kick down for a good shop in your area.

 

I found a guy in California that makes driveline spacers that will work with 2wd 05-13 Tacoma's (The 65x65mm is the one that fits). Here is a link to his site. http://www.4crawler.com/4x4/ForSale/DriveshaftSpacer.shtml

Installed this yesterday and got everything looking right again, but I still had a slight vibration. Rotated the carrier bearing 180 degrees and it is 99.9 percent gone. I'm just attributing the rest of it to being a lifted truck. After reading all the posts about STOCK vibrations I am happy with my outcome. I spoke with a shop about adding a double cardan and lengthening the rear shaft and they only wanted $350, which is fair I wanted to try my way first.



Here are some photos of what mine ended up looking like:

 

awesome! glad to hear it fixed most the problem! and also bookmarked for future

 

boy you guys have got some time invested into this stuff and i'm loving it! well not really because my truck is vibrating but it makes me feel alot better every day when i no i'm not alone because my truck is vibeing! getting a vibration around 20-30 mph then again at 55-65 or so. i'm just not getting the hang of these angles yet (i really havent spent that much time trying to fix it yet). i got a toytec 3" spacer lift up front and aal in the rear. got a vibration after initial install. ordered the CB drop and 3.5* shims for rear axle. installed the shims with skinny end forward. and have tried several washer combinations since. now different vibes. So.... i found this thread, needless to say i ordered a digital angle finder (my harbor freight didnt carry them, nor did anywhere else within a 50 mile radius) i also printed out tscotr214's pdf on driveline angles (very nicely put together i might add) and did some measuring. I'm afraid i'm waaaayyyyy off somewhere. my prelim measurements read:
TC/Trans vs. RP - 4.8
TC/Trans oper. angle - 6.9
CB angle - first shaft 6.9, second shaft 2.9 soooo 4
RP oper angle 2.1

and i didnt go any farther because i'm fairly certain something's f'ed up. my question i guess is should i just take the shims and the carrier bearing drop out and start from scratch or can it be figured out from here? or have i totally screwed this pooch?
2007 dbcb 4x4 btw.
you all deserve much cred for working so hard on this thread because you have given me hope that i can fix this thing instead of thinking ive ruined my truck.

 

Don't worry, you haven't ruined anything. Be patient. Don't give up. I've taken a break only because I'm waiting for taxes and I'm going to change my rear suspension setup. Then I'll get to crackin on it again. Next I'm going to try a rear pinion spacer and as a last resort a double cardon setup on my driveshafts.

 

Welcome to the madness dmeko0! Sounds like you're in the mix-and-match lift mess that most vibes fall into. No worries, there are solutions, time and dollars dependent of course. If you're willing to spend some time.... Let's start there. You haven't pleasured the dog yet, nothing harmed. If these Toys can handle our abuse in the dirt, they can handle a few turns of the wrench gone wrong. Mostly. Generally. Kinda.

Your vibes should feel the same at those two speed ranges regardless of whether you're accelerating or decelerating, and indicate that you're off both in rear pinion shimming and in carrier bearing shimming. Oh joy, lucky you.

Starting with the leaf shims and that first number, 4.8, you say you've installed 3.5deg shims, skinny forward, which would tilt pinion UP. Is the 4.8deg after shims? Is it pointing up or down? You want that first number to be something like -0.3deg negative, and you have 4.8. Without knowing if you're positive or negative 4.8 I can't know for sure, but... 4.8 minus 3.5 equals 1.3, which is closer to the desired negative (down) 0.3 or so. Think about it and figure out if you need to remove those shims (brings pinion down) or reverse those shims (brings pinion down ALOT). We need to know if that 4.8 is positive or negative.

Second number, 6.9, nothing you can do about that, it is what it is.

Third number, 4.0, is going to change when you mess with those leaf shims, so ignore it for now. Question though, is that after the carrier bearing drop adjustment? And how thick (more or less) of a CB drop dig you get? If you went Toytec it's probably that EMU shiny gold block about 3/8" thick or so?

Fourth number, 2.1, relates to your second number of 6.9. In the world of one piece drive shafts those two numbers would be equal, so with our two piece systems we would like them at least close. Again, start with that pinion angle and those leaf shims, then mess with it from there.

Take-away notes: Vibes suck. Some can shim their way out, others replace drivelines. In either case, they WILL go away.

 

Yo Baco! Nice to see a pulse! You damn pre-runner guys are a pain in my ass! Here I was climbing a hill all peaceful and slow, 4x4 low range, girlfriend in truck, dog in back, stereo playing, windows down, sunny peaceful day, and a frickin' pre-runner comes FLYING up the hill, horn blaring and lights flashing, blew my doors off and left me eating dust. I couldn't help but laugh, hoping his driveline was vibrating his fillings out as he blew past me. With only 2x4 you guys need the speed to make it up the inclines, so no hard feelings (my girlfriend was hotter than his so all was good in my world, which is saying something since he was in his early twenties and my girlfriend and I are in our late forties). Gave me a good laugh. The guy was out having fun and that's what counts.

If you get down to needing a double cardon, I'll cover half the shop cost, up to $500 anyway. Let me know and I'll send you a check, merry xmas. Vibes suck.

 

SUB'D

 

Tscot: LOL! yeah, we need speed for sure and weight in the bed doesn't hurt either. And I'm going to assume you're joking about sending me a check but if you're not then holy shit! While I do appreciate the offer, there's no way i could take your money. But thanks though. You sir are one of a kind. I was already blown away by your generosity in sending me a huge kit of shims, center pins AND an angle finder, which I will be paying forward to the next guy as soon as i kill my vibes. I've been laying low for a little while now with the holidays and the arrival of my second child (born 11/28/12) taking a huge chunk out of my wallet. But I'll be back on the case soon. I'm thinking of trying the pinion spacer. I know you're not incredibly familiar with prerunners but what are your thoughts on it? Looks like it solved someone's vibes in this post so i figure at only 70 bucks, it's worth a try and couldn't hurt. Even if it doesn't correct the vibrations it looks like it still fixes a potentially hazardous problem.