HELP - vibration in the driveline

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MikeyBoy

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When i am out driving, if i get above about 40 miles an hour, i get this heavy drone/vibration in the car. With the windows up it feels like your head is going to implode on the freeway. So i stopped driving it on the freeway. Turns out i have to do some freeway driving tomorrow so i want to fix it.

So the symptoms are

- vibration/drone at above 40 mph, gets worse the higher speed you go
- only vibrates with foot on the gas, at 60 i can take my foot completely off the gas and the vibration completely goes away
- i would guess the vibration resides around my area of the car, motor/tranny area, not back in the rear end, it just seems to be right under me

If anyone has experiance with something like this, or at least some ideas, please let me know, i am in DIRE need of solving this problem... my fishing trip depends on it.
 
Sounds like you may need new U joints. Slide under the car far enough to grab the driveshaft and see how far you can turn it. If you can turn it 1/4" or more and you can feel a clunk when it stops, it's bad U joints. I usually don't even bother trying to figure out which one is bad, I just change them both. It's cheap insurance. A U joint failure will either beat the crap out of the bottom of the car (rear joint) or cause the car to pole vault (front joint).
 
has your car had any drivetrain modifications or swap outs or is everything original as far as you know.
 
as far as i know, everything is totally original, the car actually only has 48000 original miles on it. its at like 48,036 miles
 
grumpuscreature said:
Sounds like you may need new U joints. Slide under the car far enough to grab the driveshaft and see how far you can turn it. If you can turn it 1/4" or more and you can feel a clunk when it stops, it's bad U joints. I usually don't even bother trying to figure out which one is bad, I just change them both. It's cheap insurance. A U joint failure will either beat the crap out of the bottom of the car (rear joint) or cause the car to pole vault (front joint).
Click to expand...

Ok, i just went out there and tried what you said, i was able to turn it a bit to both sides, and it clunked each way. Guess that means i need to do new u-joints. Will chain auto stores carry them? Pep Boys, Kragan, and Autozone are all near by. Also should i be able to change these on my own? I'm not super savy, but i can work through things.

If its a job i can pull off looks like i gotta get started.
 
MikeyBoy said:
as far as i know, everything is totally original, the car actually only has 48000 original miles on it. its at like 48,036 miles
Click to expand...

Just fixed the same problem with my '66 Valiant with 44,444 on the clock. Years will do as much damage as miles. Got my new joints at Advance, they are pretty common. All you need is a hammer and a drift to drive out the old caps and drive in the new ones. Just remember to pull the retaining clips or they won't budge.
 
A 4" c-clamp works real well if it's your first time doing this. They should have them at the parts store. Push each side out then use the clamp to install the caps on the new ones.
 
Had the same problem, but my driveshaft was shortened, and welded a fraction out of balance....kept ruining the U-joints........BUT, the U-joints are probably the culprit on your car. 8)
 
well i have the driveshaft unhooked from the car, i need to detatch the ujoint so i can bring it into autozone, they say they have 2 sizes of ujoint for the car, so i wanna make sure i get the right one.

havin trouble gettin the ujoint detatched from teh driveshaft
 
ugh, a bit frustrated, the driveshaft is out, i have my manual for the car, and it says to remove clips and what not, but the part of the ujoint attached to the driveshaft itself does not want to remove itself.

i am dismayed because the front looks like it will be the same bit problematic, is there some trick to gettin it out?
 
Most likely yours are the small 7260 u-joints. Remove all the clips then you need to get the joint to push the caps out. I sometimes use a socket bigger than the cap so it fits around it and then you can use a small mallet or hammer to drive the whole u-joint down and up to drive those caps back out of the holes.
 
SUCESS, thanks aaron.

one u joint off, goin to the parts store to get the new ones, then install them, then drive the heck outta the car
 
to anyone who has participated in this thread, thanks a bunch, they are both installed new, and she is driving with no vibration, also shifting into reverse and drive smoothly.

Once again, thanks
 
Thanks to you also. Most of the time we never know for sure how it turns out. It's rare that someone takes the time to tell us how we did.:thumblef:
 
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