Greetings all,

I just pulled an 18' cargo trailer from Alberta to Dallas and developed a couple of issues and I was wondering if anyone else has, or is experiencing symptoms similar to what I have:

"Shaking" drivetrain, sometimes when pulling a load uphill, sometimes when decelerating with compression downhill. Shake is bad enough the shifter moves about 1" to 1.5" side to side. Shake can be felt through the entire truck, but is not in the wheels or steering. Also seems to be some vibration/shuddering felt in the stick when shifting from 1st to 2nd unless I shift very early. There are no other abnormal symptoms other than a louder than normal engine ticking at highway speeds, which sounds like a noisy lifter on a gas rig (injector, maybe?). Ticking goes away when load is applied to engine. The shake started before the ticking noise. Shake seems to iron itself out after a few miles, until I pull another hill or accelerate hard when trying to merge. The bigger the engine load, the worse the shake. I'm guessing something in the flywheel/clutch area, motor mount, or possibly a harmonic balancer...

Any help would be greatly appreciated as this is way outside my understanding of things diesel.

PS
Mileage was reasonable for a 7,000 lb load, no excessive smoke, no odd colored smoke. In fact, the truck pulled like a champ all the way down.

 

Before you go and thinking it clutch/flywhel ect.. check you u joints and mainly the carrier bearing. when i had a u joint wipe out it also ripped the rubber gromet on the carrier bearing causing the driveshaft to wobble(making the truck shake and more noticable when taking off). I bet money thats what it is

 

The only permanent cure is a one peice drive shaft.Part #52123220AB auto #52123220AA manual $443.00 from " moparpartsonline"

 

I'll check it out. Thanks very much to you both!

 

I can't tell from your sig if your truck is lifted. I'm wondering if the 4" lift in my truck would be harder on two U joints due to the increased angles... 4" isn't much of a lift, but that's a lot of jam to put through a single drive shaft with steep angles. Might have to shim the axle more...

Does the drive shaft you got from moparonlineparts.com have a slip section?

 

My truck is not lifted. The drive shaft is a one piece.The only slip would be where it goes into the transfer case. Its made of 6 inch alloy tubing and is pretty stoudt. Its basically a drop in the only thing you have to do is remove the bracket where the carrier bearing bolts up.Four 15mm bolts. There are several treads on here covering the one piece driveshaft and raised trucks. Just use the search feature. Its the best thing I ever did to my truck, money well spent..

 

^^x2 ^^

 

Okay, got the driveline checked out. No carrier bearing, but the rear U joint was shot. Got it replaced and it still does it... Might just be something I have to live with (product of the lift, increase in torque, etc?) or a symptom of something failing in the tranny... Time will tell. Getting ready to run back up to Alberta with the trailer, so I'll see if it gets worse.

 

maybe look at your motor mounts real good.they could have cracked under the load,dont your drive shaft have more than one ujoint,