The Shakes

G'day all.

Got a bit of a problem with the D22/ST-R. For it's 300 thou service I thought I would go all out and replace the centre tailshaft bearing. Not because there were any noises or anything, was also driving very smooth, only that I noticed the rubber was a bit perished.

While I was at I replaced the front two universals (have to break one of them to change the centre bearing anyway). Put it back in and was all good, driving beautiful.

A little while later I thought, what the heck, might as well do the lot and change the rear uni as well (one near the diff). That's when the trouble started. Ever since it has had a vibration between 70-80 kph (gets worse under load). It's not a bad vibration, but bad enough to be obvious, and seems to be coming from rear end (steering wheel is smooth).

Took the tailshaft back out and checked the unis (thought I might have squashed a bearing needle) but it was all good. Thinking logically I must have stuffed something up, I threw in a good tailshaft from wrecker. Exactly the same vibration were still there. Gearbox mounts are good (changed them a while back) and front wheel bearings are good also.

Out of desperation, I changed the rear wheel bearings (pr-ck of a job lol), but no luck. Vibration still there.

Am now out of ideas. No wheel weights missing, would seem strange for that to happen right when I changed a universal anyway. Anyone had such a problem, got any ideas what it could be?

Have you checked the tyres for abnormal wear?
They could also be out of balance, buckled rim or a stone stuck to the inside of the rim.
There is nothing else on a rear end that you haven't checked already.

get the tyres rebalanced, it can`t hurt, you could check that they are round, maybe one has the belts letting go internally, jack it up and spin it by hand beside something to check how true they are running. good luck (((-;

G'day Horatius,
We had the same outcome as you after changing the CB at 380,000Klm. We went through the same elimination process after checking all that we did when doing the CB replacement. All was good. We replaced every part and balanced everything that rotated along the driveline including replacing the diff hub to hub and tailshaft. Nothing we did fixed the problem. in the end i decided to let it tell us what was wrong. We continued to drive the ute hoping that something would fail. Nothing happened. Over time it has all but gone. If any one on here has got history with what it is and a fix this we'd sure like to know.

Thanks for the replies fellas.

I tried rotating the tyres today to see what would happen. Theory being that if something was wrong with one of the rears it would then show up in the front of the car (shake through steering wheel etc) though it made no difference. Although getting the wheels balanced isn't a bad idea at all and I will do this directly. No doubt they'll find if a rim has buckled or something. Though it feels like a "finer", different type of vibration than would be caused by a tyre or wheel balance (which doesn't rule it out of course) and feels from the rear half.

What I did find while looking around is that there is a lot of slop between the new aftermarket CB and the bracket. From side to side is fine, it doesn't move without compressing the rubber. In the up down position it slides about 1.5 cm before it takes up and hits the bracket. Basically flopping up and down. To make it worse I did as the manual says and coated inside of the bracket with grease which makes it slide up and down without effort lol.

I don't remember any play in the old one. I tried packing it from the bottom and took it for a quick run, it seemed to be worse, which makes sense (would change the angles on uj's?). I might take the bracket off and pack top/bottom to hold it in centre and see how it goes. If that helps it might be that the $30 fleeabay CB is rubbish and a $430 one from Nissan might be the fix lol.

Sorry to hear that nuthanav, can understand what a pita that would be. If I do get a fix will let you know.

No luck so far. Not the tyres or wheel balance. No play in diff or gearbox that I can find, no driveline noises at all. All was good till I replaced rear uj (have replaced it again since) so reasonably sure it's a tailshaft problem (might have bent a yoke changing uj's or something?). Tried different CB that seemed to fit better, but if anything made the vibrations worse lol. Got a quote for D22 tailshaft from Spicers..$1,800. Seemed a bit steep, anyway, not going to happen.

Getting the original shaft checked and balanced instead by someone else. If it doesn't do any good, I think the old nav might have seen it's last trail rather than throw lots of money at it. Shame, been a good reliable workhorse.

I had this problem with my D21, back then I was using Yokohama Super Diggers. After months of frustration it ended up being an out of round tyre.

I used to chew out centre bearings every 50k due to the lift too.

Thanks John, and certainly worth a try I guess. If it still shakes when I get the tailshaft back, might see if I can swap/borrow some wheels to try. Or at least try the spare on each wheel. That they are balanced probably doesn't eliminate a tyre being out of round. It feels too high frequency to be a wheel, but that means nothing (been wrong about such things plenty of times lol).

There are companies that specialise in tailshaft balance problems (if thats what it is), it is a process of elimination and bloody frustrating. Moving the spare around is a good idea.

Well, after getting the tailshaft balanced, looks like it has fixed it. The run out at the rear of the shaft was excessive enough that it would have caused it apparently. Also looks like the "good" second hand shaft I tried, wasn't as good as claimed either.

Thanks to all who responded/offered advice. Things like this can be a bit frustrating when you are out of ideas.