So here it is.. The front shaft is new.. I've greased it so many times if the EPA ever looks under This thing they will shut it down. The tires have been rotated and balanced and checked again.

I have a vibration between 25 and 50mph. I feel it.in the wheel.. and its almost a resonance as well. It makes my ultraguage and glove box latch rattle. If I accelerate "smartly", you could almost miss it. If I take my sweet time and aggravate those behind me.. it is very obvious.

Basically I'm looking for input. I have checked the bearings for play. Brakes look good, I have have a new rotoflex as it is starting to crack. and there is what I am guessing is a leaky wheel seal on the right front. The vibration does not change with brakes or turning. The fan isn't broken in any way.

I'm really just trying to avoid throwing parts at it.
Sorry for the long post. Thanks in advance...

 

did it vibrate before you replaced the drive shaft?

 

Both. Less so after the replacement.

 

did you think to check the play on the output bearing while the shaft was out?

 

Yes. There was slight.. then I re torqued the nut to the proper spec. No play. When I had the shifter floor out I could swear I saw the shaft had odd movement while driving. I'm just not 100% on it.

 

I installed the new rotoflex coupler. I am not 100% sure, but the 2.7 mile trip home was almost vibration free. Still some resonance I think.. glove box latch still rattling away.

My new question is.. can that rotoflex make that big of a difference? Mine had cracks in it.. but it wasn't broken..

 

yes, replace it; it acts as a u joint

 

I did. I'm a little surprised that it seems to.have made such a difference. When i say differance.. the slight steering wheel shake seems to be gone as well. I had a merkur xr4ti that had one of these things on it.. it shook violently when the coupler was bad. that one was an epic pain in the ***. I had to realign the damn driveshaft or it would shake itself to pieces.

 

It's a common misconception that ordinary wheel balancing eliminates vibration from the wheels. It does not.

If you think about it, a square, triangular, or hexagonal wheel would balance perfectly. It doesn't mean it's going to give you a smooth ride.

The problem comes when you have older vehicles with wheels that have hit a few potholes over the years, and are a little (or a lot!) distorted. They balance OK but the runout causes vibration issues.

There is a machine called the Hunter Roadforce balancer, which applies road force to the tire while balancing, and gives a runout measurement. There is even a tedious process called ride matching where they match any distortion in the tire to the wheel, to cancel out the runouts.

You can only consider wheels to have been eliminated as a vibration source, when you have a Roadforce balance report showing less than 1mm runout, preferably less.

http://www.gsp9700.com/

 

Totally get that. Had a road force balancer at the Toyota dealer I worked at. Only used it for 4wd trucks and suvs.

If I can find a place that does this by me I will gladly pay to see if it helps. I can see where it would make a difference. Although.. I've owned 60 plus cars since I was 14. Never had balance create this kind of issue.