Another Vibration Post

Spriggs53

New member
I’ve had my truck (02 SR5 2wd auto trans, 148,xxx miles) for nearly a year and I’ve done about all the maintenance, preventative maintenance and modifying one could do in a year.

That being said, I’ve got a vibration. It started about 2-3 months ago after a 2” lift. Originally diagnosed it as bad u-joints, I bought a whole new driveshaft from Camelback, put in the new driveshaft and the problem persisted, and if its possible, it got worse. I took the Camelback shaft out and called it faulty so I sent it back. I put the old DS in with new cheap O’Reilly UJ’s. I know I know, Toyota and OEM, but I did it as a test to see if its actually the DS at fault. Along with that I put adjustable rear upper control arms to adjust the pinion angle to help my case some (pinion angle is now at 1.60° instead of 5.65°) along with a new trans mount because the old one was looking retired. I did that yesterday (8/7/21) and the problem persists, and again, if its possible, IT GOT A LOT WORSE.

Now, onto the actual symptoms: it started out as a slight high frequency vibration at launch up to about 30mph, and at highway speeds a grinding noise along with a high frequency (much harsher) vibration on the decel with a little bit of gas applied that you could feel thru the seat, floor board and gas pedal. As time went on the vibrations were happening more frequently and under less stress. The first time I replaced the driveshaft with a new OEM DS the symptoms got worse. At lower speeds: it turned into a harsher, a little more shaky vibration. At higher speeds: the higher frequency vibration was starting to happen every time I let my foot off the gas and felt a lot harsher, especially going down hill, not only that a shaking started to occur under load. As time went on those symptoms persisted. Driveshaft, right? Old DS with new UJ’s: only one vibration went away; the shaking under load. Not gonna lie, it rides pretty smooth… minus the much MUCH harsher higher frequency vibration. Remember how it was only doing it when I let my foot off the gas pedal? Now its happening continuously. The only thing that occurs under the decel is that grinding noise, but now its louder and happens just about every time I touch the gas pedal. The shaking at lower speeds kinda went away, but now theres that constant, non-stop high frequency vibration that replaced it. To top it all off my gas mileage dropped about 2mpg. I can feel something like some resistance; It doesn’t coast quite the same. One last thing: while cruising at a set speed there is this deep, I mean DEEP, like someone dropped the bass kinda deep vibration sound in the cabin that goes away if I let off the gas pedal and if I give the car more gas to accel.

Everything I’ve done has seemed to make it slightly worse every time. I’ve done the rear axle seals job, the valve cover job, the timing belt job, the ball joints job, the rack and pinion bushings job, the tundra brake upgrade job, nearly everything that could confront any sort of vibration. I’ve gotten an alignment and balanced the tires twice. The only thing I haven’t confronted is the front two wheel bearings and the differential. The only thing I can think of at this point is the differential or the output shaft.

Conclusion of rant; any ideas?
 
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Pinion bearing? Yoke tight in the 3rd member? DS tight going into the trans? Can you put it on jack stands and run it in the air so you can walk around and look?
 
Pinion bearing? Yoke tight in the 3rd member? DS tight going into the trans? Can you put it on jack stands and run it in the air so you can walk around and look?

Isn’t the pinion bearing usually accompanied by a whining noise? It definitely feels something like that though. All yokes feel tight, everything feels pretty tight.

I can do that, yeah, I’ll probably need to soon. It feels really bad right now, like on the cusp of something failing.
 
Normally turning will highlight a bad wheel bearing. Loading side to side. Where accel and decel will highlight DS, transfercase, trans rear end issue. Have you tried pulling the lift out? A 2 inch lift should not make the pinion angle that bad even tho you said it was corrected. . But I know lifts can make issues that where hardly noticable before alot worse. It almost sounds like extreme axle wrap. But that's about impossible. Does yours use a carrier bearing? Mines 4wd and I've honestly never looked at a 2wd.
 
I don’t believe it to be wheel bearings. Last I checked there was no play when doing the 3-9 o’clock test. Every time its gotten worse has been when I alter the driveline in some fashion.

I do need to try taking out the lift as you suggest, I just dread doing it. I need to bite the bullet. The 2wd doesn’t have a carrier bearing, its straight shaft from trans to diff.

Is there some sort of bearing or bushing inside the trans output shaft area that could wear down? The pinion bearing could make sense, I just never got any whining sound. This is a pretty harsh vibration. Another mental note I made today was that the vibration gets significantly harsher at 65 mph exactly, and coasting downhill causes a really really harsh vibration and grinding noise, the longer I coast downhill the worse it gets, almost to the point of shaking the entire rear. I’ve also noted that the flex of my suspension seems to change when the sounds and vibrations happen, like hitting a bump will make it do it sometimes. I changed the oil in the diff from 75w90 to 75w140 today to see if that would help, but to no avail.
 
There should be a bushing in the tail shaft of the transmission. Kinda a pain but you could pull the driveshaft and have someone tow you up to speed and see if it's still there lol my guess would be either something in the rear diff. Or trans. Maybe try putting the rear in the air and spinning the rear tires and see if theres any noise from the 3rd member.
 
I have seen a similar issue in a different vehicle that was caused by a bad motor mount and a really bad transmission mount.
See if you're getting a lot of movement in the engine/trans when someone shifts between drive and reverse over and over. If you're seeing nothing, watch from the side while they hit the gas hard from a stop in both directions. This is also a great way to test if you're getting axle wrap/wheel hop.

Have you been testing for play in drivetrain parts in park or in neutral? sometimes you won't be able to tell that parts are bad while it is bound up in gear. Obviously use tire chocks before you go to test this, but that is what I would do to test it all if you haven't tried it before.

If nothing is showing up, buy a cheap action camera and mount it pointing at the drivetrain parts or rear axle. Drive at several different speeds to replicate the issue. When all else fails, this can be a great way to see what might be going on.
 
The gear oil looked good when you changed it? I’m thinking a pinion or carrier bearing.


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There should be a bushing in the tail shaft of the transmission. Kinda a pain but you could pull the driveshaft and have someone tow you up to speed and see if it's still there lol my guess would be either something in the rear diff. Or trans. Maybe try putting the rear in the air and spinning the rear tires and see if theres any noise from the 3rd member.

Certainly is an interesting method, but hey, if it works, right? I will be attempting that second method tomorrow after work, the FIL will be assisting the diagnosing. I’m down to try anything at this point.

I have seen a similar issue in a different vehicle that was caused by a bad motor mount and a really bad transmission mount.
See if you're getting a lot of movement in the engine/trans when someone shifts between drive and reverse over and over. If you're seeing nothing, watch from the side while they hit the gas hard from a stop in both directions. This is also a great way to test if you're getting axle wrap/wheel hop.

Have you been testing for play in drivetrain parts in park or in neutral? sometimes you won't be able to tell that parts are bad while it is bound up in gear. Obviously use tire chocks before you go to test this, but that is what I would do to test it all if you haven't tried it before.

If nothing is showing up, buy a cheap action camera and mount it pointing at the drivetrain parts or rear axle. Drive at several different speeds to replicate the issue. When all else fails, this can be a great way to see what might be going on.

Would bad motor mounts do that though? I’ve had motor mounts go out on a FWD car before, I guess I could see some similarities but this feels different. I never thought about taking a recording, even in flow-mo to see everything happening. Good suggestion! I will give that a try tomorrow and doing some shaking on the shaft again in neutral. I’ve only done it in park.

The gear oil looked good when you changed it? I’m thinking a pinion or carrier bearing.


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Yeah, it was relatively new oil from the axle seal job, but there didn’t appear to be any abnormalities in this batch or the last; no metal shavings, no chunks of metal, seemed like relatively healthy juice. I noticed something new today that I never noticed before that has me thinking the diff. I noticed on my way to a friends how that going downhill when the grinding noise and vibrations would happening they were oscillating, almost like a bad diff whir, except I couldn’t hear the whir because of my muffler, if there was a whir. Something I’ll be thinking plenty about. The crazy thing to me is that this vehicle has seen practically 0 abuse whatsoever. The PO towed a load of furniture once or twice, I towed a fridge, I got stuck in mud twice, but thats about it, so it makes 0 sense to me why the diff or the trans would be going bad.
 
You said the problem got a lot worse after you adjusted the pinion angle with the new adjustable upper control arms. I would go back and triple check what you did there and make sure your adjustments/settings are right.

It's not common to need to adjust that for only a 2" lift on these things. Could be they are installed/set improperly.

Putting the vehicle on jack stands and running it could help narrow it down to the rear of the truck too. Does it happen in neutral as well?
 
You said the problem got a lot worse after you adjusted the pinion angle with the new adjustable upper control arms. I would go back and triple check what you did there and make sure your adjustments/settings are right.

It's not common to need to adjust that for only a 2" lift on these things. Could be they are installed/set improperly.

Putting the vehicle on jack stands and running it could help narrow it down to the rear of the truck too. Does it happen in neutral as well?

The control arms are on the lowest setting possible which was just enough. I’m right there with you, a 2” lift really shouldn’t do anything. I will probably be taking the lift and the control arms out today to see what that does, along with jacking up the rear to look and hear for anything odd. All I can think is the lift is putting strain on something that was already going out and aggravating it, I’m just hoping its not the transmission, or that any of this is hurting the trans. This is my daily driver so I kinda need it.

Edit: it appears the symptoms may be getting worse by the day. I noticed today on my way to work that going up hill felt very bad, a deep rumbling vibration would set in and then going downhill without fail, I didn’t even need to let off the gas, the grinding noise would start along with a weird oscillating type noise and slightly heavier vibrations. The only point where there isn’t vibrations is between 30-45 mph at cruise. 65-80 is when things start to get really sketchy.
 
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The control arms are on the lowest setting possible which was just enough. I’m right there with you, a 2” lift really shouldn’t do anything. I will probably be taking the lift and the control arms out today to see what that does, along with jacking up the rear to look and hear for anything odd. All I can think is the lift is putting strain on something that was already going out and aggravating it, I’m just hoping its not the transmission, or that any of this is hurting the trans. This is my daily driver so I kinda need it.

Edit: it appears the symptoms may be getting worse by the day. I noticed today on my way to work that going up hill felt very bad, a deep rumbling vibration would set in and then going downhill without fail, I didn’t even need to let off the gas, the grinding noise would start along with a weird oscillating type noise and slightly heavier vibrations. The only point where there isn’t vibrations is between 30-45 mph at cruise. 65-80 is when things start to get really sketchy.
Do you have the pinion angle parallel or pointed at the transmission output? I know you listed the angle, but did you check both the pinion angle and transmission output angle?
 
I'm chasing a very similar vibe, no grinding but vib in t-case shifter and drone from rear under load 2500-2800RPM 60-75mph, and at heavy downhill 70mph deceleration, after doing the ECGS 3rd member, OEM driveshaft, OEM rear axle bearings, trans mount, 2nd hand rear t-case flange, alignment at toyota, tires/rim swap, Steves poly rear body mounts, Erics pan hard bar relocation, 4R Billies, on 1999 front coils and OME906 rear coils with 1.5" spacers, New OEM LBJ, CA bushings, sway bar bushing and links front and back, Steves rear away bar relocation and OTR's, poly rack bushings. I'm thinking I need to revisit the rear axle shafts to see if one is bent/runout or it could be a bad bearing in the t-case(multimode t-case in my case). What a fight to narrow down, this came about after the lift aswell, mind you I have about 3" of lift in the back 2.5" up front.
 
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My grand Cherokee service manual had a section that helped diagnose axle noise based on accel-coasting-decel. I see if I can find something on it. I sold that thing a year after I bought the 96 4Runner. A gave the book with it.


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Do you have the pinion angle parallel or pointed at the transmission output? I know you listed the angle, but did you check both the pinion angle and transmission output angle?

I didn’t think to check the output shaft angle, but the pinion is pointed towards the transmission. I don’t know how you adjust the transmission angle if at all.

I'm chasing a very similar vibe, no grinding but vib in t-case shifter and drone from rear under load 2500-2800RPM 60-75mph, and at heavy downhill 70mph deceleration, after doing the ECGS 3rd member, OEM driveshaft, OEM rear axle bearings, trans mount, 2nd hand rear t-case flange, alignment at toyota, tires/rim swap, Steves poly rear body mounts, Erics pan hard bar relocation, 4R Billies, on 1999 front coils and OME906 rear coils with 1.5" spacers, New OEM LBJ, CA bushings, sway bar bushing and links front and back, Steves rear away bar relocation and OTR's, poly rack bushings. I'm thinking I need to revisit the rear axle shafts to see if one is bent/runout or it could be a bad bearing in the t-case(multimode t-case in my case). What a fight to narrow down, this came about after the lift aswell, mind you I have about 3" of lift in the back 2.5" up front.

This is the third time I’ve had to chase down the source of vibrations in a car, it really sucks. More often than not it seems to get unbearable before you actually find it.

My grand Cherokee service manual had a section that helped diagnose axle noise based on accel-coasting-decel. I see if I can find something on it. I sold that thing a year after I bought the 96 4Runner. A gave the book with it.


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That would be super helpful if you do, no big deal if not. I brought it up to the in-law and we’re gonna do diagnosing for tue rest of the evening. I’ll report back with what we find, if anything at all.
 
So, I have learned a valuable lesson today; you get what you pay for. We took the control arms out and that greatly relieved the symptoms, but that wasn’t it. I got underneath and shook the driveshaft like crazy, tho it didn’t take much to find out that these cheap u-joints have about 1/8” in each cap… thats pretty sad. I will be investing in better u-joints this time and better yet, a better driveshaft. Any suggestions on u-joints that aren’t OEM?
 
So, I have learned a valuable lesson today; you get what you pay for. We took the control arms out and that greatly relieved the symptoms, but that wasn’t it. I got underneath and shook the driveshaft like crazy, tho it didn’t take much to find out that these cheap u-joints have about 1/8” in each cap… thats pretty sad. I will be investing in better u-joints this time and better yet, a better driveshaft. Any suggestions on u-joints that aren’t OEM?
That's great that you found your culprit! Regarding pinion angle, since you have a 2wd your rear pinion should be parallel to the transmission output and not pointing up towards the transmission output. Make sure you got 2wd rear upper control arms. 2wd and 4wd rear upper control arms are different lengths in order to change the pinion angle.
 
I had a duramax that I replaced the rear UJ in because of a shake. Next day same problem. UJ is loose again. Turned out the yoke or whatever you wanna call it was worn out. New yoke no more shake! So you make check that with the new joints. Even cheapo ones should last a little while. Glad you found it tho
 

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