Horrible vibration
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Horrible vibration
87 Ford Ranger supercab, 4x4... Has a bad vibration at different speeds. I knew that the rear ujoint on the front driveline was binding up, so I pulled the front driveline off, gonna have to beat the old spider out tomorrow, but the whole truck still shakes. I'm thinking I got a bad ujoint on the rear drive line as well. I just dropped over 1000 bucks in the darn thing at my buddy's shop when the tranny pulled itself off the engine for a hella catastrophic failure as you can imagine, so Im really hoping it's nothing deeper than a simple u-joint or something. But has anybody had a similar issue? It vibrates a "certian loads/speeds" and is getting worse everyday. I'm almost scared to drive it anymore than I need to.
Cargo Master
Joined: Mar 2001
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From: Elk River, MN
Sounds like it could be rear u-joints. When mine did this, I put the rear axle off the ground on jack stands and had my wife start it, put it gear and run the back tires while I watched the drive shaft. It grew at different speeds as it rotated, indicating bad u-joints.
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2 piece drive shafts SUCK!
87 Ford Ranger supercab, 4x4... Has a bad vibration at different speeds. I knew that the rear ujoint on the front driveline was binding up, so I pulled the front driveline off, gonna have to beat the old spider out tomorrow, but the whole truck still shakes. I'm thinking I got a bad ujoint on the rear drive line as well. I just dropped over 1000 bucks in the darn thing at my buddy's shop when the tranny pulled itself off the engine for a hella catastrophic failure as you can imagine, so Im really hoping it's nothing deeper than a simple u-joint or something. But has anybody had a similar issue? It vibrates a "certian loads/speeds" and is getting worse everyday. I'm almost scared to drive it anymore than I need to.
The driveshaft company hammered the drive shaft bolts on so tight I broke a wrench trying to get them loose. I'm fighting many other issues as well with my 88 Ranger 2WD extra cab. It's starting to get depressing. The truck would be okay if Toyota made it.
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Gee... I think I found the problem, take a look at this ujoint: My Photos I always figured the vibration was the binding ujoint on the front driveline. So I never looked at the rear driveshaft...until this morning. I pulled it out and the bearings on the middle ujoint are so destroyed the shafts just move loosely and ate eachother up. 
If it wasn't one of the joints with the bolted on straps, Ill bet they would have broken months ago. I think it was all caused by the support carrier bearing which is just deteriorating. The rubber is so cracked apart I could probably shove my finger through it. lol, crappy deal. I should have looked a long time ago and I probably wouldn't be having to replace basically the whole drive line. Although I probably would have found this on my own this morning when I finally looked, I appreciate your help guys. So now I gotta decide whether to take my chances grabbing a rear drive line from the scrap yard or spend the 270 dollars on a brand new one and a new center support bearing.
If it wasn't one of the joints with the bolted on straps, Ill bet they would have broken months ago. I think it was all caused by the support carrier bearing which is just deteriorating. The rubber is so cracked apart I could probably shove my finger through it. lol, crappy deal. I should have looked a long time ago and I probably wouldn't be having to replace basically the whole drive line. Although I probably would have found this on my own this morning when I finally looked, I appreciate your help guys. So now I gotta decide whether to take my chances grabbing a rear drive line from the scrap yard or spend the 270 dollars on a brand new one and a new center support bearing.
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Well, I hit one of the local scrapyards today and they only had one supercab, which just happened to be missing the entire drivetrain...tranny, transfer case, driveshaft...all of it. All the other scrapyards are closed today, so I'm gonna try about 6 of the others that I haven't hit yet tomorrow. Otherwise it looks like I'll be seeing about having it rebuilt.