I am pulling the rear and front (while I am at it) driveshafts for balancing and my questions are 1. After you take out the rear flange bolts does the driveshaft simply slide off of the output shaft in the transfer case?
2.Do the ujoints have to come apart to balance the shaft? 3.When you reinstall the shaft do you need to use new bolts on the rear flange?
I am doing this because of a rhythmic rumbling heard at higher speeds (80 plus) and rumbling can also be felt in the floorboard. I have already changed tires, and inspected front and rear diff's and transfer case and transmission fluids, the different tires made no difference and the fluids all looked fine after 20000 miles. Thanks, Jay

 

1. yes
2. don't know, never balanced one, but I would guess leave it together and let the shop address it.
3. no, reuse them, 85 ft/lbs

Cya

 

thanks billie, I just spoke to Bean and got the same answers, I appreciate it dude. Later, Jay

 

Don't forget to use blue loctite on the bolts. There are no locking washers so.....you know the drill.

I also chased the threads with a tap/die to clean the old loctite off to get accurate torque readings.

 

We'll do, thanks. Why did you all have yours off? Did it fix anything?

 

Have you tried putting some hose clamps around the driveshaft to see if you can verify the imbalance? Dodge suggests putting one six inches behind the front yoke, then driving it to identify any change in vibration. Then try it at 90 degree intervals around the shaft, try a second clamp when you find improvement, etc. this is kind of like balancing a ceiling fan if you will.

Dodge then suggests leaving the clamps in place rather than rebalancing the driveshaft, but in your case you could at least verify the problem before paying for a balance.

Also, have you tried rotating the shaft 180 degrees on the rear yoke? Is there any runout in the shaft itself? Are there any tight spots in the U-joints?

 

Yeah, I read that in the manual. I didn't think it would cost much to get it balanced and go ahead a eliminate that possibility. Probably be about 30-40 bucks won't it? Jay

 

If i was going to pull the rear diveshaft i would do the u-joints, then have it balanced.....i pulled mine for the same reason as you, then discovered the u-joints were bone dry (at 30k). Between replacing u-joints and the balance, all is smooth.

 

I had a new 1 piece driveshaft made up about 40 or 50 k miles ago and so far no problems! New bearings have grease fittings also.

This eliminated the need to 'try' and shim the center bearing getting the shafts parallel...which is impossibe as any load in the bed would throw this off.

 

I just put new greasable ujoints in about 10000 miles ago and they feel nice and tight, I don't get the rumbling until about 80 mph, I have probably had it a while maybe since the truck was new, it is just recently I have been up around 100 or so playing some. I will let you all know how it turns out I just pulled the shaft and will take it to the driveline shop tomorrow, and I will get them to check the runout too. Jay

 

UPDATE: Took the rear driveshaft to the driveline shop this AM and the runout was way out of spec, you could see the shaft wobble as it would turn. I am getting a custom shaft made today, I will let you all know how it goes. Jay

 

You do have to pull the U-joints to balance the driveshaft.