Hey guys,

Took my truck in for noise/vibration in the front end, they said it was wheels out of balance. Two weeks later I'm still getting some vibration in the front end. It actually sounds like a low tone harmonic imbalance/droning with some vibration, any ideas? i am going to make another appointment and take them for a drive with me.

 

Well, could be tires, but if that's fixed I'd bet you've got u-joints going bad. Do a search about front driveshaft u-joints on here and you'll see it's very common. And, if not fixed, can destroy your undercarriage, t-case, transmission and anything in it's path. Get your u-joints replaced. Could be front diff, but u-joints are the best bet and if wasn't that, it's maintenance that needs done anyway.
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Thanks Jdelp, I will put that on the list of considerations.

 

Don't put it on a list of considerations, crawl under the truck and see if your 2 rear u-joints, on the front drive shaft, that attach to the t/case have grease fittings, if not get them replaced ASAP and make sure the rest of your u-joints get lubed at least every 12,000 miles.
By the way, if it is the 2 u-joints and they fail, which they all do, you will be looking for a new tranny afterwards.

 

ok, Disco Mike

I will let you what I find under there.

 

Yea I will tell you from experience altough my last U joints failed less than 5k miles ago. I was lucky and no damage done to the transmission th first time the u joints went.SoI just put in a low mileage driveshaft and thought it will be good to go for a couple thousand mileswell sure enough 5k miles later I am looking for another driveshaft and a transmission now . Anyone have any cheap ones PM me.

 

Another cheap driveshaft? You sure about that?

 

Well this time I am going to put new greasable u joints in it. The sad part is I had the u joints sitting in my garage the whole time I just figured the driveshaft didnt have but arond 30k miles on it so it should last longer than that before I put new U joints in it. But oh well guess not.

 

Ouch, that would makeme pretty sad. I had never heard of anybody actually breaking their shaft even though I hear it happens all the time. I thought about putting mine off for a while, thinking that it should be good for a while longer. I'm glad that I did it,even though I didn't really have the time. It's interesting because a lot of 4x4's use this same design with sealed bearings but never seem to have problems. I guess it's just in a bad location on a LR.

 

Mike,

I went under the truck and just like you said, the two Front U-Joints on the TC do not have grease fittings, Why is this?[:@]
The Roto Flex Coupling had some small cracks in it also.[:@]

So from the looks of things I need to replace the two U-joints at TC with units that have grease fittings and also the Roto Flex Coupling. I can get the U-Joints from Advanced for 15 bucks a piece. I will just have to find someone to install them, should I have them all greased when I install the additional two at the TC? Can I get a Roto Flex Coupling from online, the dealer would probably be too much, yes?

The front U-Joint has a grease Fitting, the Rear U-Joint has a grease fitting and so did the rear drive shaft?.

I tried to upload pics but it didn't work, sorry.