OK. I finaly remembered to ask him for the exact procedure and it is basicly as posted above,but he said to goose it a little. Dont flore it but make the engine torque a little so it will alighn itself. Then shut it down and tighten it up. Sorry I took so long to get back with the procedure.

 

Would you mind posting a little more detail?

i.e.: do you just run it in park/neutral in the driveway or actually drive a little? What about blipping the throttle?

How about location of tranny/engine mounts. I was under there this morning (prior to reading this thread) and see a cross member under the tranny mounts with about a 15mm nut that holds the mount to the cross member. Looks like there are bigger bolts holding the mount on the topside of the cross member. Which should I loosen?

Engine mounts look fairly straight forward - some fairly big a$$ bolts - one mount located under the turbo (?)

I was just about to go out and try some other things (jackstands under rear axle, run up to 70 mph, if vibe there, rotate rear shaft 180 degrees and re-attach. try the hose clamp thing to balance, take off rear wheels and see if that affects it, etc.). Based on this, I will try this method first.

 

As far as where the mounts are located I cant help as I dont have the problem and havent had the need to locate them. I would asume the tranie mounts he was speaking of are the ones that bolt to the cross member. As far as what gear its in his was a 6 speed so I would asume it makes no difference on the autos. I would use nutral and do it on level ground so the transmision does not haev force being aplied to it buy the drve shaft trying to hold the truck still. He said to blurp the throtle but dont flore it dust give it a good hard blip to make the motor jurk a little so it will hopefully align itself better. Good luck. Sorry I cant be of more help but like I said I dont have the problem and am just relaing info from someone else.

 

Is this vibe only with 4wd? I have an early 03 2wd that has no vibe as far as I can tell...

 

Loosening the engine and tranny mounts didn't quite do it for me. I may try again - I assume I loosen the 18mm bolts about 2 turns. Maybe I should loosen more.

I did take <90% of the vibe out by using a hose clamp on the rear drive shaft. Buy a $44k truck, fix it w/ a $1.29 hose clamp. Nice.

 

Explain the hose clamp?????

 

Sorry - let me clarify:

I got sick of the vibe and read about placing a hose clamp (worm-drive style) on the driveshaft and checking to see if it helped. The theory is that the higher weight of the nut/drive part of the hose clamp acts as a weight. What you do is:

Place a hose clamp on the front of the driveshaft, go drive the truck into the mph range that vibes and see if it is better or worse. If not better, stop, move the hose clamp 90 degrees, and re-drive test it. If still not better, continue moving the clamp around until it makes it as good as you can get it. At that time, you can then try a second hose clamp in the same area (to provide more weight) and see if that helps or not.

In my case, I did this by driving down the highway. I found a point that took 50% of the vibe away. I then decided to let the dealer use his "expertise" (sarcasm) to fix it for good so I don't have a hose clamp holding my truck together. They were only able to make it worse. Much worse.

So yesterday, I put the truck up on jackstands and ran it up to 70 mph in my driveway (don't do this unless you follow EXTREME safety precautions) and kept trying the hose clamp until the vibe was gone.

Well, today on the way to work and driving around, I found that I can BARELY perceive any vibe all the way up to 80+ mph. It is at least a 95% improvement.

Happy for now , but somewhat pi$$ed that the dealer, with all his years of training, experience, customer service training, work ethic, and patience (much more sarcasm) couldn't do what took me 30 minutes of troubleshooting.



As soon as the truck is out of warranty, I will hunt down an independant mechanic and pray that I never have to go to the dealer again.

 

You have effectivley balanced the driveshaft.

 

Looked under the truck yesterday evening, it seems that some of the bolts are more accessible than others. On an auto which would I loosen? The bolts connecting the mounts to the engine and transmission or the bolts connecting the mounts to the frame.

Thanks in advance

 

NEW GUY HERE. I HAD THE VIBRATION ALSO. I COULD FEEL IT IN THE SHIFTER FOR THE TRANSFER CASE AND IN THE SEAT OF MY PANTS FROM 68 0N THROUGH 80. IT TOOK ME 5 VISITS TO THE DEALER AND TALKING TO THE SERVICE MANAGER TO FIX IT. I ALSO DID SOME EXPERIMENTING ON MY OWN UNTILL I FOUND THE PROBLEM. FIRST TOOK OUT THE FRONT DRIVE SHAFT WENT FOR A SPIN NO DIFFERENCE VIBE STILL THERE. NEXT TOOK OUT THE REAR DRIVE SHAFT PUT IT IN FOUR HIGH WENT FOR A SPIN NO VIBE SMOOTH AS GLASS. BE CAREFUL THOUGH IF YOU GO UP AN INCLINE LIKE TURING AROUND IN A MEDIAN TRANS FLUIND LEAKS OUT OF TRANSFER CASE AND MAKES A HUGE MESS AND SMOKES. WITH THIS INFORMATION I WENT TO THE SERVICE MANAGER AND GOT IT FIXED. THEY TOLD ME THERE IS NO WAY THAT THE DRIVE SHAFT IS THE PROBLEM. WELL IT WAS - IT WAS BENT .350 OF AN INCH OUT. NEW DRIVE SHAFT - NEW TRUCK!!! THE WHAA, WHAA, WHAA IS GONE ALSO- JUST EXHAUST DRONE. I HOPE THIS HELPS. TRYING TO BE HELPFULL. I KNOW HOW YOU ALL FEEL.

 

I havent looked, but I would loosen the bolts that go to the frame. Maby I am wrong here but that would make most sense to me.

 

Good job Tim at least you had a dealer to work with you. I only have two dealers near me and neither will even try anything.

 

Go to this thread at Dodgetalk.com and scroll down to Marko54's post. Sounds good to me but too late for my '03...

http://www.dodgetalk.com/forums/show...8&page=3&pp=20

 

We have two 04 trucks for our business and the one my partner has had the vibration and mine didn't. I guess I'm alittle more patictular about those kind of things than he is so he never took it in to complain. Long story short we both put AFE Stage II intakes and MBRP turbo back exhaust on and it took his vibration away We didn't know what to think about that other than we knew it had to be in his engine somehow and the smoother power he got from the mods took care of it. I'm certain if he had read this when his vibration was there we would have been under there trying your trick.
I love this site, the things you guys figure out are amazing...LCH

 

Guys, I have 130k miles or so 203k km on my truck. I've always had a slight vibration but I've gone through so many u-joints that it seemed that there was always one on the way out. Last month I decided to start at the back and replace all the u joints and carrier bearing with spicer stuff. At the same time I had the two piece shaft balanced. I couldn't believe how much weight had to be put on both ends of both shafts on one side to get it balanced. Now the rear at all speeds is very smooth. I imagine if I did the motor mount realign that I would be 100%, right now 95% is a treat. The front is two ujoints and 4 ball joints away from happiness. ks