I have replaced all three u-joints and the carrier bearing in the drive shaft and still have a somewhat rough riding truck. I have checked all the wheel bearings and they seem to be quiet and smooth when rotated. Now I'm beginning to believe it's something with the tires. Won't that be a kick! When I put the vehicle in neutral and coast, the roughness seems to remain. By the way, when I was checking the wheel bearings in one front wheel, I kept hearing this noise. I removed the tire and there was no noise in the bearing, but when I rolled the tire, I could hear something rolling on the inside. I think someone put a marble in the tire when it was mounted as a joke. But I did have one bad u-joint and a bad carrier bearing. I now have three new greaseable u-joints and new carrier bearing with a new flexible boot and clamps. I have learned a lot about drive shafts in the process, but my quest still goes on to get this baby riding smoothly. After all, it's my golf and fishing truck

 

sounds dumb....but here are a few things you should check....

are your wheel wieghts all still on? did one fall off? did someone throw one on just to bug you?

2...are your front shocks/struts leaking? if they are your running just on springs and it will give you a very rumbling ride.... also run your hand on the tread's of your tires.... do you feel any ripples? like uneven reptile scales?

3.... this was a very BAD joke/prank in my highschool..... people were putting wheel weights (sticky and/or magnetic) on other people's axle's and or driveshafts.... really not cool but it was happening a lot!

ok...... those all sound dumb but still very possable.... also.... even if you put your truck in neutral the driveshaft is still spinning if your moving... goodluck

JOe

 

Talk about dumb. I had carefully marked everything on the driveshaft so I could reassemble it the original way. I had looked at the spline and noticed the female section was keyed, so I assumed (and you know what the work assume spells) there was a key on the male section. Wrong! So I lost my positioning on the spline connection. So I have two choices. Have the dual driveshaft rebalanced at a cost of $140, or play the guessing game. So I am first going to roate the shaft 180º and try that, and if that doesn't work, then a couple of 90º rotations from the present position. And then I suppose it will be to the driveline balance shop. Shoot! Ford Mo. Co. in their infinite wisdom keyed half the spline and then must have decided they could save some money or something.

 

Down here in Dallas Tx it cost me 30 bucks to have 1 balanced.

 

Northern Colo. in Loveland. There is only one shop that can balance a splined connected driveshaft in the area. A bunch of machine shops can do a single shaft at a resonable cost, but not both together. Everyone I call recommends this one shop and they charge $140. Would I be stuffing money down a rat hole to have each shaft balanced individually, and then hope they would be okay when I connected them together?

 

yes you would. They need to be done together. How far are you from denver or something? prob too far to make it worth it.

 

The first rotation of 180º accomplished the task. It's smoother than it's ever been and I doubt that having the professionals do it would be much of an improvement. Besides, I always have that option. And I'm now so proficient at removing the driveshaft, I can do it in about 30 minutes. So having the U-joints and center carrier bearing replaced was really the answer.