Hi,

I justfinished ahead gasket replacementabout three weeks ago. I have been driving my 97 Disco since then with no problems at all. We towed our pop up trailer to my in-laws house about a hundred miles away this weekend. It is a pretty hilly drive with a few long mountain passes. After this trip I am now noticing a vibration when accelerating. It happens the worst under medium throttle. It's hardly noticable under full throttle and not noticable under low throttle (slowly accelerating to 25 mph for example). Once I am up to speed the vibration goes away. However, if I have the cruise set and start up a hill I can feel the vibration come back. Sometimes it is bad enough to make the glove box bounce and rattle against the dash.

My guess is some type of driveline issue... maybe u-joints? I have read the posts and that seems to be the opinion of most people. I have also seen some say it could be a fuel filter, spark plugs, spark plugwires, etc.

If any of you have had this problem and been successful fixing it I'dlove to hear yoursuggestions.

Thanks in advance,

Erick

 

I'd lean towards a driveshaft/u-joint issue. The symptoms sound right.

Your towing may have done them in.

Get it looked into soon. You don't want the saft to let go on you.

 

Erick,
How many miles on the truck, how often you you lube the u-joints?
You might want to check for a broken motor mount.
Do you have a roto flex on your rear axle, is it cracked?
Mike

 

Mike,

I'm right around 151,000 miles. I haven't lubed the u-joints yet (no grease gun). I'm not sure what a roto flex is... can you explain it? Also, are these u-joints available at a parts store or will I end up buying them from atlantic british and waiting for shipping? I should note that the vibration seems to have gotten better when accelerating but I do notice it now when just cruising along.

Thanks!

 

a roto flex is a black rubber connector that connects the rear drive shaft to the rear axle. they have a tendency to crack and split. take a good look and see what condition it is in. any of those symptoms get it replaced asap. as for the front drive shaft check to see if any of the 3 u joints have grease fittings on. if they dont you can get greasable ones from autozone p/n# pdq1-0005 and the cardon joint centering kit p/n# neapco 7-008ng they are both made by neapco (made in u.s.a.) i replaced minea couple of weeks ago, not a real problem to replace, a few hours of sweating, swearing, and dirty hands but well worth the piece of mind. also the shaft has a set screw in it that can be removed and a fitting installed to grease the splines. i removed my fitting and replaced the screw as it was really close to the cat.cost for the parts about $60 and about $80 for the roto flex

 

I got under there today and found out I did have a bad u-joint. It was in the front driveline against the transmission. Autozone had two in stock so I replaced both the u-joints in the front axle. I finally bought a grease gun and greased the other u-joints on the rear axle. Both axles on mine have u-joints in the front and back of the drivelines. So I have a total of 4 u-joints which is different than I understood it to be from this thread. I plan on replacing the u-joints on the rear axle sometime in the next few weeks. It drives great now and the vibration is gone. Thanks for the help!

 

Good that you found the problem. Try to grease the u-joints every 12,000 miles and even more often if you do alot of water crossings.
Mike

 

This reminds me of a funny story, A fellow in Newfoundland went to the local garage and told the mechanic that his car makes a "rattling noise" whenever he rev's it up.The mechanic's reply....don't rev it up!