Do you think my pinion angle is the problem?

I am not familiar with the Kwik-lift, so I googled it. There seems to be several different types available. Not knowing which style you have I feel the need to mention that your suspension must be loaded/compressed by the weight of your car when you are measuring pinion angle (some of the Kwik-lift models raise the car from the middle and allow the suspension, front and rear to hang).

Driveshaft being in "phase" is this (hope this makes sense) ... if you were to draw a line straight through the U-joint (cup or end cap) on one end of your driveshaft then down the side of your driveshaft to the other end ... it would cross the other cup or end cap in the same spot ... basically both ends of the driveshaft line up perfectly ... if you were to lay the driveshaft on the ground, resting on the front cap, it will also rest on the same spot of the rear cap if the driveshaft is in phase. If you rest the driveshaft on the ground and the front U-joint lays square on the ground but the rear does not, the driveshaft is not in phase.

Friend has a tire shop, the balancer went "wonky" and failed to correctly balance any wheel/tire combo. They caught on (rather quickly due to complaints) and had it repaired ... it IS possible the shop you are using has a "wonky" balancer and they don't know it. Just curious, each time you took the driveshaft in did they ever have to actually rebalance it (meaning add or remove any weight) or did it always come out as OK?

I had a wooble in three cars I owned ... thought I was doing something wrong ... all three had wobbles because the factory GM "rally" wheels were not straight.

 

Quick thoughts for now because of what borntoloze brought up.
Standard u-joint timing or phasing has the u-joints in line by checking your deck of your press builder to the world and then to the levels a builder uses to check phasing to be the same.
First gen Camaros and Firebirds need a out of phase driveshaft to put in a vibration that cancels another (I don't know why) and will change when the car has a 9" replacement rearend. Beats the shit out of me worse than figuring out the fix of a school bus having the pinion bearings beat out of it in less than 10,000 miles.
I might have another way to fix an angle problem if that's what it is. The name association will create hell and not of my doings. \ _ / is how it looks. Broken back. Sounds funny, but can be explained in science. Equal angles at each of the driveshaft or within one degree thru the u-joint.
Small dose of math.

 

A front end alignment laser electronic gadget is no better than the last person that calibrated it and how often it is done.

 

"Early Camaros had the driveshaft built out of phase to create a vibration to counteract another vibration" (or words to that effect) ... interesting ... a friend just had a driveshaft built for his '67 Camaro (to replace his factory one) and the shop built the driveshaft "in-phase". Will be interesting to see if the car has a vibration now.

Question ... if a hot rod uses a rear from an early Camaro (say an 8.2 ten bolt), should this person also have a driveshaft built that is NOT in phase? Just to be clear, this is a legitimate question.

 

I had a similar problem years ago in my 390 powered 66 Fairlane. After much hair pulling it was eventually established that a differential pinion bearing had collapsed.

 

just looking from the pics it looks like your pinion on the trans and the rear are both facing down . if thats what im seeeing that would cause a little bind

 

I'm thinking really hard here, and I can see a scenario where a problem might occurr.

Assiming the trans is sitting tail DOWN, the axle nose needs to be pointing UP. Very basic, I know, but can you confirm this is correct.

To be honest, if the trans is 7 deg down, and the axle pinion 6 degrees up, then they will probably become more equal as the diff noses rises due to the torque taken to drive the car along.

Is there a difference to the vibe that is effected by ride height? Does it run smoother when higher or lower?

Front wheel imbalances will show up as a shake through the steering wheel.

Sorry, don't have any real answers, just more questions.

Mart.

 

I think this chart makes it easy.......It's for drag racing and the third row shows a angle correction that's not might be needed on a street car.

 

After reading the thread, this was what I was leaning towards. You didn't mention if the noise changed from acceleration to deceleration to cruise. Just as bad pinion angle noise/vibration will change under acc/decel, so will the affects of a bad pinion bearing. Side bearing noise/vibration will be more constant, but can still sound like something else....

 

Under load it was OK but when you took your foot off the gas there was a noticeable whine and some lag. I can't recall which one of the pinion bearings collapsed. Given that the centre was just rebuilt I was not happy. I had no option but to drive 12hrs and nurse it until I got home where it was pulled and taken back to the diff shop. Thankfully the gears were OK. I ran OEM leaf springs not 4 bar. If parallel 4 bar, your pinion angle shouldn't alter through the suspension arc.
With a removable carrier at least you can pull the axles and remove it to check the axle bearings and centre itself.
Also had a problem as mentioned as well, a tyre was out of round and vibration was hard to pinpoint until it burst. Did all the problem solving things to no avail, short of rebalancing the NEW tyres off the car. A steel belt had separated on the radials, not noticable at low speed but increased on the highway.

 

Not to send you off on a tare i hope i can help.I went to factory training for chrysler years ago so you may be able to fill in the blanks by searching in cyberland.
Noise vibration harshness was the coarse,what we did was find the harmonics or cycle of the vibration with some big dollar device that had a pick up you laid on the floor or dash when the vibration came in.After the class was done he showed us a simple briggs and stratton tachometer that gave rpm through cycles also.A round device with a wire that would bounce around as you extended it outward.
When the cycles matched the rpm it would steady out aligning the scale on the dial showing the rpm of the cycle.
You need some facts like ring gear dia ,gear ratio,tire roll out and trans final ratio.
Find the cycle of the vibration at the max aplitude with the briggs and stratton whirligiger then you use simple math to eliminate causes.I have to find my workbooks and i do have them but all things driveline spin closely but not the same rpm.
Things i found useing this method,bent output shafts,weirdly worn ring gears,and a out of ballance fan.

 

try this-put car on the ground and take another reading of the angles-even money says pinion will change

 

Check if you're wheels have been correctly balanced! Most shops get this wrong what wheels are yo running for starters? If steel rims standarD or widened and most alloy mags for that matter need to be lug centrally balenced and not hub central which is what most shops do these days,the hub isn't neccessarily the true center of the wheel in many cases,however you cant go wrong if balcenced lugcentrally where the wheel bolts to the hub! I myself chased a very similar problem for approx 6 mths in my 59 chevy, checked every thing driveshaft angle, center bearing, uni joints, tranmission mounts, shimming the rear arm but at 50-55 mile she would have that dreaded vibration and drumming tried another set of larger dia wheels seemed better, then i decided to rebalance all my wheels for the 3rd time except did them the lugcentral method and bingo! No more viberation out on the highway now she glides along and is an absolute pleaseure to drive, just my 2 cents, hope you sort this out soon as it certainly can detract from your cruising experience!

 

Any word on your problem. Another thought, on my model A for three years I have had a real bad shake at about fifty miles an hour. Different wheels, swapping rotors, lots of balancing of tires, new driveshaft, etc, etc. Everyone said it was a balance issue. A few months back it was alighned, problem solved. It handled perfect so I and every one else for that matter ruled out an alighnment problem.

During this one thing I realized is when it comes to tires, you can balance an egg but that doesn't mean it is round. This wasn't my problem but I did end up taking my tires to a big tire shop and have them shaved so that they were actually round, then had them balanced.

Joe

 

Get your hands on one of those rear end diagnostic charts. I have some at home in books, I'm sure you can find one online. Just go through the scenarios and narrow it down. It sounds rear end related to me.

Bob

 

A worn transmission tailshaft bushing can cause the yoke to wobble.

 

Very true had this issue on a 4wd when I was younger and learnt it the hard way...... Now I make sure all driveshafts are in phase...

 

Id say to check that angle with the car at ride height also and i always keep my pinion angles withing 1/2 a full degree at ride height and never have any issues with going up or down on a 4 or 3 link...

 

' Red X' will tell you to piss the shaft off and fit a known good one.

 

Check out this link and you should be able to narrow things down a bit. The old Motors manuals have a good rear end diagnostic section in them as well.

http://www.aa1car.com/library/vibrations.htm

Always check the easy things first like motor and transmission mounts, make sure the exhaust isn't hitting the floor pan, etc.

Bob

 

Thoes shoes boxs you could rake them lower them and the driveshaft would hit the floor if to much weight going over bump.
If the motor is orginal and trans is stock,I,d say your rearend is angled wrong.I think you are to high i,d bring it down to 3 degs,and also how low is the car beyond the bumper over rearend.

 

Man-o-man i hate these pinion angle discussions. i didn't read the whole thing so if somebody else pointed out thet you are not measureing pinion angle in the original post. You are measuring the relationship of the pinion to the ground, in brief if you put larger tires on it your pinion angle would change - right? Then you can troubleshoot by changing tire diameter. And we know that ain't so, right?
Pinion angle is the relationship of the pinion to the driveshaft. Measure it across the yoke at each end of the driveshaft. If the tranny end is down about 3 degress the pinion end should be up about 3 degrees (i have problems with some of this but that is another discussion), the net effect is that both ends of the universal joint should kinda cancel each other out - under power the driveshaft want to go straight and it is your job to assist it as much as you can.