Possible Driveshaft Imbalance??

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RobR

New member
Joined
Aug 4, 2005
Posts
3
Greetings,
From the start, our new (July) 26.5 ft Lazy Daze (E450 Ford Chassis) has had a vibration at highway
speeds. It is DEFINITELY not tire imbalance - it's much higher
frequency - plus I've had the tires checked. The vibration is like a rumble
that is most pronounced amidship. I had to disassemble the power
converter to put some dampers on the sheet metal as that was making
quite a racket with a noisy resonance in response to the vibration. I'm
thinking improper driveshaft balancing from the factory (Ford). Has
anyone ever experienced this?
Thanks.
Rob
 
Rob:

>It is DEFINITELY not tire imbalance - it's much higher frequency<

Then driveshaft or one of the 'steady bearings' (if your unit has them) is probably a good guess.  I have such a vibration in my 94 Chev K1500 only when 4wd is engaged.  I'm going to have my mechanic check out the front driveshaft for the same reason.

Frank.
 
There are many possible causes..  Used to be when I got that kind of vibration on the Dodge B-250 I used to drive on occsion... I knew to drop in the parts store and get a new U-Joint.

Now, as it happened the B-250 used 2 different rear U-Joints depending on just which one you had.  One was about eight bucks (back then) and the other 20... Being a dedicated follower of MURPHY I knew which one to pick (the more expensive) and sure enough.. It fit (the other one would not have)

Same on some older cars (NOTE: I tend to drive vehicles till they rust apart,  My current "Car" is a 1992 Lumina APV (that's All Plastic Vehicle) it's on it's 2nd tranny and engine, I can't tell you how many times we have re-done the brakes (2nd set of drumbs, 3rd or 4th rotaters) but it's not got a rear U-Joint so that's one problem a FWD vehicle will never have... It does have one axel that is in 2 parts,,,, but that is how Remco made it :)
 
I had the same type of variation in my Dodge 4x4 diesel 3500. It indeed was the drive shaft.

The drive shaft on this truck, because of the extended frame, had 3 u joints.  Found one place that did car drive shafts and they could not handle a 3 u joint, 2 piece drive shaft.  Had to find a truck frame shop that had a long enough balancer to do the entire shaft in one operation. If  you go to a shop to get it balanced, be sure and tell them it has to be done as an assembled 2 piece shaft. Some places will tell you that doing each section separtely is OK.  Don't believe them.

Chet18013
 
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