Another Vibration Post

Been through this, it's 100% pinion angle, you need adjustable rear links.

I had my drive shaft completely rebuilt and balanced, didn't help.
Balanced my tires on Hunter road force machine, didn't help.

Finally replaced upper and lower rear control arms, adjustable on both. Lined up rear pinion angle with drive shaft to with 1 degrees. Now it can go up to 100 MPH and it's smooth as silk.

Search - Toyota Double Cardan Drive Shaft pinion angle

https://www.triketalk.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=43011&d=1487805932
 
Bad Luck said:
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.
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Hmm, I never thought of that. I used what I believe to be 4wd rear UCA’s. That would be why it made the symptoms a lot worse. I guess the control arms would need to be shorter than stock rather than longer which is what these are.

Yardrunner said:
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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Its funny you mention that, because I can’t tell if maybe the caps on the UJ aren’t the right size or if its like what you said, but I swear I saw the cap move around in the yoke a little bit, and as I think back to it I remember those caps sliding in a little too well, I originally thought it was because we had put them in the freezer.

4rFrog said:
Been through this, it's 100% pinion angle, you need adjustable rear links.

I had my drive shaft completely rebuilt and balanced, didn't help.
Balanced my tires on Hunter road force machine, didn't help.

Finally replaced upper and lower rear control arms, adjustable on both. Lined up rear pinion angle with drive shaft to with 1 degrees. Now it can go up to 100 MPH and it's smooth as silk.

Search - Toyota Double Cardan Drive Shaft pinion angle

https://www.triketalk.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=43011&d=1487805932
Click to expand...

I guess I don’t know enough about driveline geometry evidently. I will be trying 2 things next before I bite the bullet on that one. 1) put in new, reliable UJ’s from Moog, and 2) get an aftermarket DS from those Texas Driveshaft Specialist guys, I don’t care much for the OEM driveshaft, and if the yokes are worn out then it doesn’t matter how many UJ’s I put in and times I adjust the pinion angle. All else fails, Any aftermarket 2wd control arms you would recommend?
 
Spriggs53 said:
Hmm, I never thought of that. I used what I believe to be 4wd rear UCA’s. That would be why it made the symptoms a lot worse. I guess the control arms would need to be shorter than stock rather than longer which is what these are.



Its funny you mention that, because I can’t tell if maybe the caps on the UJ aren’t the right size or if its like what you said, but I swear I saw the cap move around in the yoke a little bit, and as I think back to it I remember those caps sliding in a little too well, I originally thought it was because we had put them in the freezer.



I guess I don’t know enough about driveline geometry evidently. I will be trying 2 things next before I bite the bullet on that one. 1) put in new, reliable UJ’s from Moog, and 2) get an aftermarket DS from those Texas Driveshaft Specialist guys, I don’t care much for the OEM driveshaft, and if the yokes are worn out then it doesn’t matter how many UJ’s I put in and times I adjust the pinion angle. All else fails, Any aftermarket 2wd control arms you would recommend?
Click to expand...
Moog on rockauto look to be about $30 more per rear upper control arm: More Information for MOOG RK643506
OEM are about $100 each: 1996-2002 Toyota 4Runner Upper Control Arm 48710-35030 | Toyota Parts

I would go with OEM
 
If it was me. I'd pull the lift and put back the stock arms if possible and start from scratch. Throwing money at issues sucks. I've had some pretty bad pinion angles. And what your describing sounds like more than just angle. Vibration, shake some noise all sounds normal. But just coasting and decel being that bad doesnt seem right.. By no means am i an expert but ive had my share of poorly executed projects lol
 
Another kinda random thought.. are your rear brakes dragging? Heat spots in drums. Or any sort of out of roundness with a constant pressure could cause a shake.. and I know when I was pulling my drums in a sort of fit of anger I bent my backing plate and now on corners it likes to make contact and make a wonderful grinding noise.
 
I put the old control arms back in the other night and that reduced the symptoms by a good bit, mind you the other ones pushed the pinion angle upwards, which I am now seeing isn’t a good thing.
I keep hearing that. I dread taking out the lift, but I should probably take the advice and bite the bullet, I could find out a lot. I don’t know if I should try that first or the new UJ in the DS again. I do agree, it seems like more than just pinion angle. Angle may help but I doubt it would solve overall problem. And seeing as how much the u joints moved in the caps makes me think thats the primary culprit.

I’m not sure, how do you check such a thing? It doesn’t feel like they are. I get a little bit of a shudder every now and then when braking but other than that, the brakes feel pretty good. I suppose it could be possible.
 
So normally. If your braking and get a shimmy in the steering wheel that's front rotors. If your coming to a stop and the car kinda chugs as it slows that's the rear. Have you been able to put it on jack stands and run it in the air? Dragging brakes should cause excessive heat. So drums would be hot after minimal braking. Jack it up and spin the tires. They should spin pretty easy.
 
So, once again, we took out the drive shaft to put the Moog UJ’s in, and as we get started I noticed that one of the caps appeared to be loose. I gave it a flick and it moved. Uh oh… As we got started, some of the caps just fell out of their yokes. Yikes! We put the new UJ’s in and they fit much better, but there was still some play, so the FIL spot welded the caps to the yokes since I will be needing a new DS anyway. We got everything set up, put the DS back in and started the car up. The vibrations are still there, but tighter… if that makes sense. That same grinding sound is still there as well under the normal criteria. So wth? I get underneath to see if the new UJ are bad or maybe those caps are still loose. I give both ends of the DS a good tug and the flange side is rock solid, but the trans side had a clunk, only this time is was not from the UJ. The UJ was also rock solid, however, I noticed some play from the slip yoke on the output shaft… I don’t know what to think. We did a series of diagnostics and everything is normal and dandy. Trans shifts good, car drives good, differential is acting normally, no sounds. Drum brakes are acting fine. For all intents and purposes, the car is running perfectly. The only thing I can think of is that the slip yoke isn’t mating up with the output shaft well enough due to the lift kit. I still don’t see how only 2” could be causing all of this. I’m at a loss, does anyone have any input? There was about 1/16-1/8” of play on the slip yoke. I’m really hoping the output shaft isn’t damaged.
 
Kind of hijacking but I ordered Energy Suspension Poly Steering Rack Bushings hoping I can knock out the death wobble when going over 60+ MPH. Replacing the front sway bar bushings with Poly helped it a bit but it's still vibrating so I hope nicely used tires and fresh rack bushings can kill the death wobble for good. I do have my dangerous LBJ which "I think" have never been replaced at 228k but the previous owner was an enthusiast (truck was modified when purchased) so I hope they replaced them.
 
Update:

After further investigation yesterday, I’m afraid I have come to the conclusion that it’s the output shaft. I’ve tried everything at this point. We’ve even rotated tires, made a sort of spacer for the drive shaft to see if maybe it was too short, we took the rear lift out and that helped the most, but the problem is still there. I took the DS out and gave the output shaft a wiggle and it “clunks”. Well great. I guess I’ll be paying my transmission guy a visit asap.

Edit: we checked the splines on the output shaft and slip yoke and they look good and clean.
 
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FD7683 said:
Kind of hijacking but I ordered Energy Suspension Poly Steering Rack Bushings hoping I can knock out the death wobble when going over 60+ MPH. Replacing the front sway bar bushings with Poly helped it a bit but it's still vibrating so I hope nicely used tires and fresh rack bushings can kill the death wobble for good. I do have my dangerous LBJ which "I think" have never been replaced at 228k but the previous owner was an enthusiast (truck was modified when purchased) so I hope they replaced them.
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That sounds kind’ve like more than steering rack bushings. I’m with yardrunner, that sounds like the CV’s. I’d recommend doing the LBJ asap as well. That’s not something you want going out on you, and it never hurts to have fresh ones. Check your tie rods as well.
 
Last update:

Solved the problem! Turns out the extension housing bushing was bad. $2 to fix and drives like new.
 
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