1997XLTRollover
Explorer Addict
- Joined
- February 28, 2007
- Messages
- 1,321
- Reaction score
- 7
- Year, Model & Trim Level
- 1996 AWD 5.0
Hey all, I have been chasing a vibration on my 96 AWD 5.0 for a while now and am at wits end and hoping someone has an idea. Long story short she was in dire need of some repairs and quite a bit of the truck is new now, but I have what seems to be a high pitched vibration (thinking drivetrain) at around 70-75 mph. I can start to feel it around 35 mph.
I think part of the vibration is in the front driveshaft because with the drive shaft removed the vibration gets slightly better, however that also unloads the front drivetrain, so I'm not totally sold on this theory. The obvious thing to me is my passenger CV shaft. It's loose on the axle side. Sounds easy right? Well I replaced the CV with new and the vibration actually got worse thanks to Chinese parts, so I put the factory CV back in. Rockauto also wouldn't take any of the garbage parts back, but that's another story, probably won't buy from those guys again.
Now being that this is my daily it's a huge pain, but I then ripped everything back apart thinking ok has to be a bad axle bearing. Well replaced that, no change, CV is still loose. Ok intermediate shaft splines must be worn, replaced the intermediate shaft with another used shaft, same issue. Now all this being said, the splines aren't perfectly tight on the CV and I'm thinking not perfectly tight inside the carrier either where the intermediate shaft goes in. I'm thinking this is causing it since the bearing was replaced, as well as the CV itself. I would honestly like the bearing to fit tighter on the axle shaft, but it seems like that's just how things are, because the new bearing fits the same (slightly loose IMO).
Any thoughts on this?
I think part of the vibration is in the front driveshaft because with the drive shaft removed the vibration gets slightly better, however that also unloads the front drivetrain, so I'm not totally sold on this theory. The obvious thing to me is my passenger CV shaft. It's loose on the axle side. Sounds easy right? Well I replaced the CV with new and the vibration actually got worse thanks to Chinese parts, so I put the factory CV back in. Rockauto also wouldn't take any of the garbage parts back, but that's another story, probably won't buy from those guys again.
Now being that this is my daily it's a huge pain, but I then ripped everything back apart thinking ok has to be a bad axle bearing. Well replaced that, no change, CV is still loose. Ok intermediate shaft splines must be worn, replaced the intermediate shaft with another used shaft, same issue. Now all this being said, the splines aren't perfectly tight on the CV and I'm thinking not perfectly tight inside the carrier either where the intermediate shaft goes in. I'm thinking this is causing it since the bearing was replaced, as well as the CV itself. I would honestly like the bearing to fit tighter on the axle shaft, but it seems like that's just how things are, because the new bearing fits the same (slightly loose IMO).
Any thoughts on this?