Hello all,

I am new to this forum and have a problem with our 98` Disco. It has in the past week or so developed a strange vibration. The vibration occurs from about 30-40 MPH and seems worse on decel. I have driven around our neighborhood and it consitently does this. I have shifted into neutral on the transmission and it still does it. So I was thinking U-joints, as the disco has about 114k miles on it and is on the original set of u-joints. Sure enough the front drive shaft had some slack in it at the transfer case. So I took it out and replaced bothe u-joints, and thought I had the problem solved.

However on driving the disco after the u-joint replacement the vibration presists. Next I took it into the tire shop and had the tires rebalanced and rotated. This did not fix the problem either.

I have checked the fliud levels of both the front and rear diffs. The front was considerably low and the oil appeared black, so I drained the diff and replaced the oil. The rear was at the fill line and the oil looked like it was placed there yesterday. But again after doing this the vibration is still present. I am concerned about the front axle and the condition of the bearings/ gears after having a very low (approximately 25%) oil level for an unkown amount of time.

I plan on taking the disco into a local shop tomorrow to have them look it over. However I don't really want to spend a whole lot on repairs since we (the wife and I) are planning on trading it in on a newer (2004) Disco in the next 4-6 months. If anyone has any suggestions about what else might be going on I would love to hear your ideas.

Thanks

 

It sounds like some sort of dynamic issue. Is either propshaft bent? Are the unis correctly phased? Is either propshaft out of balance?

I'd check these ideas out first before I drove the thing off a cliff !

HTH

Pete

 

Have you checked the rear drive shaft? Could also be loose wheel bearings starting to fail.

 

Thought aobut eh wheel bearings as the next possibility. I plan on taking it into a shop tomorrow.

thanks again.