How to Diagnose Truck Drive Shaft Problems - Vibrations and Noise

In today's video, we're gonna go over some places that you could check for issues on your rear driveshaft of your vehicle.

All right, so one of the first things I always like to do is just try to talk about maybe some of the simpler things that we should check first, before we get into something more complicated, such as the driveline itself. Of course, if you were to jack up the vehicle and have it in neutral, you could potentially spin those wheels. You wanna make sure that none of the wheels are frozen. You can't turn it at all, if your brake seized up, you're gonna have an issue. It's gonna overheat, it's gonna cause vibration and you might think it's something different when really, it's something as basic as the brakes.

Another thing we can look at, it's right here. Look at this tire. This isn't in the best condition, as you can tell. Some tires have much more traction. They have much more tread sticking out. But you might also notice that they're pretty much chopped up. Some have small layers, some have deep treads, and that's gonna, of course, cause vibration as well. If you have weak shocks, that could cause vibration. There could be an issue inside of your differential, where maybe things are a little bit too loose in there, or even too tight if you've had any service done, or even your wheels could be damaged, or out of balance.

So, let's go with the idea that none of this is an issue for you. You checked it all, it seems great. The brakes aren't hanging up, the wheels are in good enough condition and we already know that everything else is checking out that we've talked about so far. So, what we would have to do, we would check this drive shaft right here. This is your rear drive shaft, it's gonna go from your transfer case if you have a four-wheel-drive vehicle. If you have a two-wheel-drive vehicle, you're not gonna have a transfer case. You're just gonna have a straight up transmission with a drive shaft to the rear differential. In our case, we have four-wheel drive. So, there's several things we're gonna check. What I like to do now is go ahead and take down this drive shaft and take a closer look.

Okay, friends, so we got the drive shaft down on the bench so we can take a closer look at it. Right here you can see the forward U-joint. This is the area that's gonna be sliding into that transfer case unit or transmission if you have a two-wheel-drive model. What you need to do is lift this up and try to move this around. If it feels as though it's kind of tight, and then loosens up and then it's tight again, then you know that you have a bad U-joint. That means that inside here where the roller bearings are, is either seized up, or it doesn't have enough grease, and it's just not pivoting properly. So, if you can take this, and you can go like that, and it has no resistance, it's probably all right. If you can take this and do this, that's great. You go like this, and it's really tight and then loosens up, really tight loosens up, you know that that's a problem. More than likely, what you would wanna do is try to add a little bit of grease to this if there's a grease spitting. That might help cure the issue, and it might only be temporary or it could even be permanent. If you haven't greased it in a while, it probably couldn't hurt.

But if you have an area where it's binding, more than likely the damage is probably already done. This right here isn't actually a drive shaft, obviously. This right here is a steering shaft, but it has a U-joint, and it has the issue that I'm trying to confirm with you. If I was to take this, I can move this, no problem. If I go in this direction, obviously that U-joint is in really poor condition at that point. Imagine that on a grander scale, something like this, that's gonna have a whole bunch of torque getting applied from the drive shaft or from the driveline to those wheels in the rear. If this U-joint's binding and it's at an angle, it's gonna cause a severe vibration. You might also notice if you move further down, if you have the four-wheel-drive model, you probably have a carrier bearing that looks like this. If this carrier bearing is separating like this one right here is, then it's in very poor condition. I can take this and I can move it right along. This, inside of your vehicle, is a very scary and very unsafe predicament.

Would you be able to see that there's this much of an issue with it in the vehicle? Maybe you could, maybe you couldn't. I wouldn't be able to move this like this if it was still in the vehicle. So, do you need to remove your drive shaft to fully diagnose why you might have a drive shaft issue? I would definitely recommend it. Once you've confirmed or declined the fact that this is needed or not, you could of course move along to your other U-joints. You would test this one in approximately the same way. We'll move all the way down here and it leads us to this one. This one will be the rear one, and it's closest to the rear differential. If I take this, I can give it a little spin like that. It might feel good. I can give these caps a little spin. If it feels like the cap, kind of, turns but then stops, more than likely it's binding inside. I'm gonna carefully pull this up. And I say carefully because it has a whole bunch of little needle bearings in there. If you were to look inside here, you're gonna see the needle bearings. They need to have plenty of grease on them.

If you see that they don't have any grease and they're super bright red or discolored or rusted or they've just got gunk in there, more than likely the bearings are no good and you would wanna replace the U-joint itself. With all that said, I'm gonna ask you a question, would it make sense to just replace the one U-Joint that you found was bad, especially if you happen to check those other U-joints and they seemed as though they were approximately the same age, as in, maybe they're rusted or the boots are crusty? Or maybe they feel as though they're starting to bind a little bit? To me, it would only make sense to replace all the U-joints at the same time because you've just done the majority of the work by getting the drive shaft out of the vehicle in the first place.

Okay, friends. So, on our drive shaft we happened to find multiple issues. We found that there was a bad U-joint in the front that was starting to bind a little bit. We need to replace that.

We also found that the center carrier bearing was in poor condition. It's starting to separate. That absolutely needs to be changed. While I'm at it and the drive shaft is out, I'm gonna go ahead and replace all the U-joints because that's how I roll. Now, if you liked the video, please make sure you smash on that like button for me. It's gonna mean the world. While you're at it, why don't you go ahead and subscribe and ring the bell that way that you can be kept up with all of our latest content. Thanks.

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