2005 Tundra novice build - "The Rez"

[Kpack]

Project: Driveshaft balance

Purpose: I had my driveshaft balanced a month ago and though everything felt great early on, it started to shake worse than before later. i noticed that the two halves of the shaft were out of phase with each other and wanted to get it right so I didn't have to worry about it.

Materials
-appropriately sized box-end wrenches
-sockets (14mm)
-impact gun (with extension and u-joints for flexibility)

Procedure:
-Block front tires
-Put truck in neutral
-Mark shaft at each end to make sure it goes back on correctly (factory service manual shows how to do this)
-Remove rear of the driveshaft first
-Use box-end wrench on the nut, and the impact gun on the bolt, remove the nuts and leave the bolts in until you are ready to remove
-Once all the nuts are off, use a rubber mallet to tap the rear flange off, and carefully drop the driveshaft to the ground. It's heavy, so be ready.
-Move to the front and do the same thing. The truck must be in neutral for the front because you will need to spin the driveshaft by hand to get to all the bolts.
-Leave front flange on the bolts for now, then use 14mm to remove the two carrier bearing bolts. The whole driveshaft will come down now, so be ready.
-Gently slide the front flange off and remove the driveshaft from the truck.

After balancing just do everything in reverse order.
-Front flange yoke: 65 ft/lbs (it helps to put the truck into park for this part)
-Rear flange yoke: 65 ft/lbs
-Carrier bearing bolts: 30 ft/lbs
-run a string from the bottom of the front flange to the bottom of the rear flange, then line up the carrier bearing bracket so the center of the bearing is on the line. Then torque.

Here's balancing the driveshaft. Pretty cool machine. Everything is free float, with dial indicators at front, middle, and rear.

Rear shaft runout.

Mid-shaft (behind the double-Cardan joint). Lots of shaking here. At the end you can see the front flange runout....nice and tight

Post balancing. It took a few tries to get it right, but look at that difference.

Got it all back on, torqued to spec and marked all the bolts to easily check torque in the future.

Lots of the shakes are gone now. Most everything is pretty smooth. There is still some in the background, but I'm not too worried about it. I do need to pull my front coilovers and have them rebuilt soon though....I can tell they are past due. I'm not sure of the mileage on them but I know it's way over what Icon recommends.

 

[smokeysevin]

Kevin I have not forgotten about the carrier bearing, I currently have the shaft on my welding table and will get it pulled tonight or tomorrow.

Sean

 

[Kpack]

Kevin I have not forgotten about the carrier bearing, I currently have the shaft on my welding table and will get it pulled tonight or tomorrow.

Sean

Let me know what you find out. I have a suspicion that my new carrier bearing is junk. My driveshaft is perfectly balanced now, but I still have shaking. The carrier bearing squeaks and is easily heard at slow speed.

I guess the shaking now could be out of balance tires, but they've been balanced twice since new (less than a month) and last time Costco trashed my wheels. Not excited to have them re-balance. I'm kind of at a loss for the shaking at this point. My next best guess I need to have my coilovers rebuilt (way overdue)...maybe that will help? The truck rides like crap over any sort of bumps in the road....the whole thing shakes like crazy. 31-33 PSI in the tires.

Any thoughts on good rebuild shops for Icon?

 

[smokeysevin]

Honestly rebuilding shocks isnt that hard, I have done three sets now and its a little intimidating at first since its new but they are really simple.

The hendrix motorsports carrier fits. You need a 6006 rs (confirm that part number) bearing but it goes together nicely.

Make sure the circlip side faces the front shaft section.

Sean

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[toyick]

Honestly rebuilding shocks isnt that hard, I have done three sets now and its a little intimidating at first since its new but they are really simple.

The hendrix motorsports carrier fits. You need a 6006 rs (confirm that part number) bearing but it goes together nicely.

Make sure the circlip side faces the front shaft section.

Sean

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Any more info on specifics for that carrier bearing!? i want to do that!


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[toyick]

Any more info on specifics for that carrier bearing!? i want to do that!


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is this it? https://www.polyperformance.com/hen...MI_tnRs5jP3gIVlNlkCh11IQ1sEAQYAiABEgLV-_D_BwE


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[smokeysevin]

That's the one, you need to order a 33x55x13 sealed bearing for it as well, I ordered a VXB 6006 DU from amazon for $8.88 but a timken would probably last longer. Be aware that this will transmit more vibrations.

Sean

 

[Kpack]

Thanks for the info on the carrier. Vibrations are my enemy at the moment, so I'm not sure I'm going to go this direction.

Driveshaft is balanced, I dropped the driveshaft carrier bearing down a little over 1/2" using washers, and the vibration is slightly better. I really think there is something else going on here. Going down a completely flat road (with a new-ish surface) the whole truck "wiggles"....I can watch the bed in the mirror and the whole thing jiggles up and down. Hitting any sort of bumps makes the problem worse. With the rear on jack stands the wheels seem to spin true, all tires have been balanced twice (less than 2000 miles on them, wheels are less than 5000 miles on them). If I put my hands on 3 and 9, and 6 and 12 on the rear tires I can hear a little "clink" when I move the rear tire on the driver's side, and maybe a little bit when I move the rear passenger. Might be a little bit of noise as I rotate them with the truck in neutral.

I'm running out of ideas here. Rear wheel bearings? Previous mechanic said he heard no noise on them. Bent axle? No leaking diff fluid at the hubs. Worn leaf spring bushings? They don't seem obviously bad.

I'm tired of throwing money at it and hoping it solves the problem. I'll probably take it in for diagnosis in a week or two to see if they can find anything. I'll probably have them check axle run out as well. If it's rear wheel bearings it would easier to just get a donor axle right? If I can find a good used one it would probably be cheaper too.

 

[toyick]

have you drained the gear oil in the rear diff and checked it?
i had a customer complain about a similar vibration and it ended up being his third member..

also as far as the bent axles i have no leaking fluid but know its bent..

 

[smokeysevin]

Have you serviced the rear drums? It could very well be that you have some rust or something built up on the drive flanges between the drum and hub or something along those lines.

Sean

 

[Kpack]

have you drained the gear oil in the rear diff and checked it?
i had a customer complain about a similar vibration and it ended up being his third member..

also as far as the bent axles i have no leaking fluid but know its bent..

It better not be the third member. I just had it rebuilt 4 months ago with all new bearings and such at a reputable off-road shop. I ought to do a shot drain of the fluid and take a look at it just to make sure.

Have you serviced the rear drums? It could very well be that you have some rust or something built up on the drive flanges between the drum and hub or something along those lines.

Sean

I haven't had the rear drums off since I've owned the truck (170K miles, 198K now). The rear brakes were redone around 155K if I remember the old records right. I forgot to mention that lately I have been getting some bounce when I apply the brakes harder from around 50mph. The bed definitely bounces. I will need to pull them and take a look. They're probably getting close to needing a replacement anyways.

 

[smokeysevin]

Has it done this the whole time you have owned the truck or just since you did the wheels?

Sean

 

[Kpack]

It's progressively gotten worse despite everything I've done. New tires and wheels didn't make much of a difference, either better or worse. Driveshaft balancing I thought initially made a big difference, but the more I drove it the more I realized that it hadn't. It has definitely gotten worse over the past two weeks. Maybe I need to try a balance again? Not sure I want to take it back to Costco for that. I don't have hours to kill and last time they scratched up the wheels pretty bad. Nowhere around me does road-force balancing, and TBH last time I tried that it made no difference whatsoever.

The whole truck just shakes....shakes on the road, shakes over bumps, and overall doesn't feel smooth. If I do a firm push down with my arms and let go on the rear bumper, the whole bed, bumper, and truck jiggle for several seconds afterwards. No way that's normal. I don't see other trucks on the road bouncing around like mine does.

I have lots of things I'd like to do to the truck to make it more capable for what I need, but I'm not willing to spend the money if I can't get it to ride smooth.

 

[smokeysevin]

That sounds like bad rear shocks or a busted upper shock mount. Do you get rattles or just the vibration?

The stock leaf pack isnt doing you any favors either. I went through my deavers last week and found that the holes that the shackle bolts go into on the shackle and the holes at the front leaf mount had egg shaped slightly and had wiggle room on my truck. That will be getting fixed with some weld washers and proper 3/4" bolts when I get time.

Sean

 

[Kpack]

I would hope it's not the rear shocks. They are Icon 2.5's with maybe 10K miles on them. I don't hear anything like a rattling sound, mostly just a non-stop vibration.

I'm definitely going to be changing out my leaf pack. Right now I'm on 1.5" blocks in the back, and the leaf packs make a lot of noise when they flex (popping and clunks). I have a set of stock packs from an access cab that were given to me, that are in good shape from what I can tell. I'm leaning towards throwing a progressive 3-leaf AAL on them to get me by for a while until I do something like the Archive Garage packs.

Anyone know if the leaf pack for the access cab is the same dimensions as the double cab?