Driveshaft spline alignment

[NegroTundra]

Dropped the driveshaft the other day and took it in for a rear u-joint replacement. I told the dudes at shop (very trustworthy shop fyi) to not separate the front of the shaft from the rear. They knew why and proceeded to press out old u joint and install new joint. I've done these before but was feeling lazy, and they quoted me $10 labor if I just brought them the shaft.

Get back home with the shaft, raining hard, preoccupied by my 3 year old screaming at top of lungs, i pull shaft out of truck and just like that, it separates:frusty:

I think to myself maybe I'll get lucky and put it back together in the exact spot where it used to line up on splines. Yeah Right! My vibes are 10x worse now.

Would you: A) just take to driveline balance shop and tell them to try to adjust it, spline by spline till its balanced, or B) keep uninstalling rear part of shaft and trying different spline orientation till you get it right.

I've got this 1200 mile road trip coming up next week and will probably go into a coma if I dont get this hashed out before then.

And yes, I should have just marked the shaft at the slip joint, separated, taken to shop, and reinstalled correctly. I am feeling stupid.

 

[FrankieJoe14]

I don't think a driveline shop will charge a lot to have it balanced. It would certainly be less than your time-cost to uninstall/reinstall several times.

Plus then you know its fixed and balanced and you no longer have to worry about it.

 

[JWaldz]

Well, now you know it's good to mark those two points for any kind of DS work lol..

That being said, it shouldn't take long or cost THAT much for a driveline shop to balance it.

 

[NegroTundra]

Well, now you know it's good to mark those two points for any kind of DS work lol..

That being said, it shouldn't take long or cost THAT much for a driveline shop to balance it.

Haha, yep. Only two driveshaft shops in my area, each quoted me ~$125 for balance. What a retard I am!!!! I really wish Toyota would have integrated a master spline into their driveshaft design

 

[reelamin]

Re Balance it....also for future simply mark all joints, caps, directions before removing certain parts to put back exactly. I just use tire pencil as it is super durable and does not stay forever like paint.

 

[mtbtim]

Well, now you know it's good to mark those two points for any kind of DS work lol..

That being said, it shouldn't take long or cost THAT much for a driveline shop to balance it.

Yes, always make match marks. I've serviced my slip yoke several times and making match marks is the first thing I do.

These paint markers are a nice way to go for marking things:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003TQXSBA/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

[phattyduck]

Read the driveshaft greasing guide - you'll see that the grease nipples are all in line. IF (big if) the shop installed the new u-joint in the correct orientation, that's how it should go back together.

If that doesn't fix it... yeah, time for a balance.

-Charlie

 

[RonJR]

You just have to look at the u-joint ends. The yokes that are attached to the drive shaft itself must be exactly in line with each other on opposite ends. Hard to explain without a picture. Look here.
Proper U-Joint Installation TipsBehling Racing Equipment

Otherwise there will be a cyclic speed variation between the transmission and the differential, which will cause torsional vibration in the shaft.

If you still get a slight vibration you can pull it apart and rotate one of the sections 180 degrees and reassemble. One of those two orientations will be optimum.

 

[NegroTundra]

All this is super helpful, thanks gents. I went for it and tried to get in correct orientation, no luck so far. I got the orientation of the front and rear u joints in sync, however I now realize the zerks are 180 off. I will pull one more time and align those.

I did mark the driveshaft where it attaches to the flanges, front and rear, so I got that going for me.

If this last attempt doesnt work, off to pull down my pants and take it in the rear.

 

[RonJR]

If it still vibrates in both positions with the U-joints correctly aligned, the fact that you separated the splines is not the problem. At that point, I would take it back to the original shop, because it would seem likely they didn't get one or both of the new bearings pressed in correctly.

 

[NegroTundra]

Got the zerks all aligned. It took care of the increased vibration :thanks:

However, I'm still experiencing vibration between the ~58 and 64 mph range. Granted, it's less than it was when the old u-joint was on there, but still a vibration that seems to come and go. Good thing about it is I can avoid the vibration by staying out of that mph range.

Problem is, when I bought this thing 6 months ago it had this vibration. I suppose my search will continue. Going to pull front driveshaft off and drive around tomorrow. If that doesnt lend itself to another suspicion, I will once again pull rear driveshaft and have it balanced.

Just balanced tires, replaced rotors and pads about a month ago...fyi

 

[phattyduck]

Front driveshaft doesn't spin unless you are in 4WD - removing it won't tell you much.

Try the opposite: Put it in 4WD and remove the rear driveshaft as a test. You'll be FWD and any rear driveshaft vibrations will be gone.

-Charlie

 

[OldManKamps]

From FSM

This is the proper technique, align your DS as it is in the picture. They are factory balanced in this orientation.

 

[NegroTundra]

Front driveshaft doesn't spin unless you are in 4WD - removing it won't tell you much.

Try the opposite: Put it in 4WD and remove the rear driveshaft as a test. You'll be FWD and any rear driveshaft vibrations will be gone.

-Charlie

Can others confirm this? Was under impression that it spins whether engaged in 4wd or not. Will also do reverse test (as you mentioned) next. Thanks.

 

[NegroTundra]

Got the driveshaft balanced today. Did nothing for my vibes. The guy at the shop said it was way off. While it was getting balanced, I drove around a good bit with just FWD. It was hard to say if it was better. It definitely did not become smooth like a baby's butt. But seemed like the vibes were coming from a different area, not sure.

Anyway, this is turning into yet another 3rd gen highway vibe thread. I'll update when (if) I get to the bottom of it. Thanks again for yawls recommendations...

 

[csp]

Can others confirm this? Was under impression that it spins whether engaged in 4wd or not. Will also do reverse test (as you mentioned) next. Thanks.

Consider this a confirmation. The spider gears in the front diff turn, but the ring and pinion do not. If the pinion isn't turning, the driveshaft won't be either if the tcase is in 2wd.

If a driveshaft is "way out", as the driveshaft shop said, it's probably bent. I worked for a driveshaft shop in college and we did not balance driveshafts, we trued them up to remove any runout. Never had one come back for vibration problems.

 

[OldManKamps]

Got the driveshaft balanced today. Did nothing for my vibes. The guy at the shop said it was way off. While it was getting balanced, I drove around a good bit with just FWD. It was hard to say if it was better. It definitely did not become smooth like a baby's butt. But seemed like the vibes were coming from a different area, not sure.

Anyway, this is turning into yet another 3rd gen highway vibe thread. I'll update when (if) I get to the bottom of it. Thanks again for yawls recommendations...

Check your front CVs, if they're worn out, they cause vibrations. PROTIP: Remove the front/rear driveshaft and the CVs and see if you have any vibrations :cheers:

 

[NegroTundra]

Check your front CVs, if they're worn out, they cause vibrations. PROTIP: Remove the front/rear driveshaft and the CVs and see if you have any vibrations :cheers:

CV's were on my mind as well. 197k on them, but the vehicle was nearly always in 2wd for the first 185k of its life. Probably should swap them out. Thanks for the PROTIP, haha (now you've got me pondering how fast I could go with the CV's and Rear driveshaft removed)

 

[OldManKamps]

CV's were on my mind as well. 197k on them, but the vehicle was nearly always in 2wd for the first 185k of its life. Probably should swap them out. Thanks for the PROTIP, haha (now you've got me pondering how fast I could go with the CV's and Rear driveshaft removed)

Check the condition of the boots, my boot has been torn for over a year now and I can feel it getting progressively worse. Especially at corners on the highway at 100km/h.
The joke is that you wouldn't even move an inch with no rear driveshaft or CVs
No power could get sent to the wheels.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

 

[weezykid]

The only way not to get the front driveshaft to turn would be with locking hubs. Even then you will still get some spinning from momentum.
In reverse order from the way power is transfered.. The front wheels connect to the CV's. When the front wheels spin the CV's are spinning. The CV's connect to the spider gears. The spider gears in a differential are there to connect the spinning shafts to the ring gear/carrier which in turn connects to the pinion. The pinion in turn is connected to the driveshaft. Spider gears in a diff case for an open diff, such as ours, are there to transfer power, but also allow for the inner wheel to spin at a different speed the the outer wheel during a turn. Since we do not have locking hub on our front flanges, when both wheels are spinning in the same direction, the CV's, front differential and front driveshaft are spinning as well.
With an open diff you can hold one wheel and spin the other wheel, the pinion will spin. But you cannot spin both wheels the same direction without the pinion spinning.