5 Attachment(s)
Driveshaft Project Closeout
Fort Wayne Clutch and Driveshaft finished up the balancing job on the two pieces of the driveshaft. When I talked to the tech he said; “That was a really interesting job”. I told him; “That’s the general description of just about everything on that truck”.
As you can see, he added some balance weights and gave me witness marks to put it back together. But, for some reason, he didn’t realize that the holes in the flanges are not symmetrical. They are on the same radius, but they are not 90-degrees apart – so one set of marks was off by 90-degrees. When I aligned the marks, the bolt holes didn’t line up, no big deal.
He straightened the rear shaft. Now when I looked at the job sheet, it was 0.036-inches out of true when he started and the final was “within 0.006-inches”. I don’t think it was that bad to start, but he was proud of the job he did. There is a little play in the center carrier bearing that may or may not be a factor in things.
It went back on fairly easily, one of the more pleasant half-hours I've spent under the truck. I have figured out where to loop the rope around the shaft to support the flailing end while I work on the other one and I didn’t even drop the shaft on my head one time. But, if I had, I wouldn’t have admitted it to my wife.
We went for a couple of rides – and the vibration is still there. It wasn’t the driveshaft. But – now I know it’s not the shaft – and I have nice new boots on the U-joints. I need to go back to the tire shop because I lost the balance weights off the right rear wheel last summer, so we’ll see if that helps. If not – it’s probably differential noise and I don’t intend to tear that thing apart. Old trucks make noises.