I got my 05 Ex last summer

Got a 5" lift Rough Country lift installed to accommodate 35" tires. This was all done by a local shop ( Steve's Off Road in Mobile, AL). The lift uses stacked blocks in the back and new springs up front. The lift worked well but was an inch or two high on the front end. We gave the front springs a while to settle, but they never did. Ultimately I took it back in to be leveled and to have my new Redhead steering box installed This was done with a slightly larger set of custom blocks and retaining the factory blocks underneath. The Ex was level and looked and handled great.

About a week later I accelerated away from a stoplight and apparently the 6.0 generated enough torque to bend the rear U bolts and spit out the rear blocks This of course caused the back end to drop and as a result tore the drive shaft off where it meets the rear differential.

Truck was towed to the shop on a flatbed. The lift was restored with custom anti-wrap blocks ( 2 small u bolts secure the top of each block to the leaf springs). The truck also got 2 new rear shocks, new driveshaft, new yoke.

The lift is restored, but this left a significant driveline vibration. The shop ( which has stood behind the initial work and done the additional repairs at no charge) felt that this was due to the driveshaft (pinion) angle and subsequently tried several angled shims to fix this, but with only a partial reduction in vibration.
The tires and wheels have been checked and rebalanced, but there is still a vibration. There is no vibration noticeable until about 50mph and it gets worst at about 60 - 65 but never goes away entirely. It
I am not a mechanic, but I cant really believe that this is the problem since there was no vibration until things collapsed and the truck appeared to be at the same height then.

I obviously would NEVER do stacked blocks again.

Any additional thoughts on what we could be missing ? I drive on the interstate daily and want to use the truck for road trips and need to restore it to its previously great ride.

Any help will be GREATLY appreciated !!

 

Was it a new drive shaft ? Or used ? Shaft could be out of balance .

 

When you spit out the blocks, it may well have done damage to the U-joints or the flanges

 

Had thought about asking them to recheck the balance on the driveshaft.

 

One more thing to ck on the shaft . I think it is 2 piece . Make sure it is timed properly . I see that a lot on larger trucks . Yours may have a master spline , but worth a look see . And ck carrier bearing while at it . If 2 piece that is .

 

That is exactly what you should do...

 

Man if a shop tried to stack blocks on my truck, I wouldn't be able to get my truck out of there fast enough.

 

This is my first lifted truck so I am learning. I pretty much knew comments about the stacked blocks were unavoidable

I believe the driveshaft on the Exs are one piece, but 2 piece on the F series of the same years.

I think pretty much everything between the trans and the rear diff is new, but I will take a look at the U joints

 

+1 on the Yokes. If it bent the yoke you can replace the u joints and balance over and over and it will never be right, if it's not true you need to have it replaced. Don't bother trying to get it balanced until you are sure nothing is bent, IMO the only way to really measure and see if the yoke is bent is to remove the joints first, so you might as well replace them all. I went through 5 U joints in my rear shaft before figuring out I had a bent yoke. 3 of the 5 were quality spicer joints and a bent yoke still trashed them in less than a month, the other two weren't installed properly (probably because of the struggle getting them in) again due to the bent yoke, and well because the shop who decided to force them in instead of stopping and saying "something isn't right".

 

I wasn't trying to say you are an idiot or anything, just expressing my horror at a shop doing something so dangerous. Just don't post anything about this down in the 4wd/offroad section. Those guys are likely to skewer you alive while calling into question your heritage and laughing at your problem.

 

I agree. Dem folks in that thar off road section are pure rednecks. and sometimes meaner than a racoon that just came outta the barrel. (then they would try like all gitouts to help ya)

 

OUO traction bar lift block one piece unit.



Takes care of the lift block as well as preventing axle wrap all in one.

Stewart

 

That looks pretty interesting. I want to look at it further sometime.

 

5" of blocks and then more to level the truck? How many inches of blocks are in the rear now? Also how many blocks are in each side? The blocks (especially if there are more than one) probably don't have alignment pins all the way threw them from axle to spring which is why they got pushed out and caused problems.

I agree that the driveshaft probably got tweaked somewhere causing the vibration now.

 

I posted a question down there recently, and this is exactly what I got. Lots of crude humor and jokes...and then they offered some feedback that was spot on. You just have to be patient and have thick skin down there They are good rednecks...