Months ago I was fighting a vibration I couldn't find. I had ruled out tires, redid the driveshat ujoints, the drive shaft center bearing was smooth as silk, nothing helped. From 65 up it was a real shaker. Finally found that I had a bad ujoint on the front of the front drive shaft. It had a dry cup with NO rollers left. Seemed to be a simple fix, $10 for a new ujoint and minimal time I was on the road again. That fixed most of the vibration but you could still feel it in you feet from about 65 up, the faster you went the worse it got.

Well, I took the front driveshaft off tonight and went for a ride. SMOOTH as silk to over 80. Now to get the driveshaft checked out. I hope it is a simple rebalance job.

Is it possible that the drive shaft was damaged from flopping around the last few thousand miles with the bad ujoint?

Dave Smith

 

One of the balance weights could have fallen off. The factory manual has a procedure to check shafts for balance using hose clamps. Check it out.

 

I bet you have a later model 2002, the one without the CAD.

I also bet the center of the Double Cardan (CV) joint is toast.
There is a ball that rides in a socket that is lined with needle bearings, good chance they are bad or missing.

I fixed mine by going with a Tom Woods.
It lasted about 10,000 miles then pooped a ujoint last weekend(in the CV), dropped it off for R&R on Thursday.
Fixed up shaft should be arriving via UPS tomorrow or Tuesday.


phox

 

They added a couple hefty chunks to it to balance it (3-4oz I'd guess). It is a lot better but not right.

Should I just get another driveshaft? I could have them rebuild it with new tubes. The joints all seemed to be tight and smooth.

Who is Tom Woods?

Thanks,
Dave Smith

 

http://www.4xshaft.com/

There are many shaft makers out there, he's local so that's why I chose him.


phox

 

Custom Clutch here in Canton is going to put it on the balancer again tomorrow and let me know what they find. The Joints all checked out fine last time. They sure had to put a lot of weight on it to get it to balance last time. I suspect a bad tube, but that is just an opinion.

They made several driveshafts for me and my brother in the past when we were playing with hot cars and big blocks. They always did good work in the past.