1995 2wd has infrequent severe rear end shakes. Drives normally 99% of time.

[onstottc]

I'm getting random bone jarring shaking coming from the back of my truck. It feels like driving with a square tire. Ride is smooth and the truck handles normally the rest of the time. When it occurs, stopping the truck or slowing down to about 15 mph makes it go away and then you can resume driving at normal speeds like nothing happened.

I've attached a video. The first 50 seconds show the shaking occcuring. Then the video shows it driving normally. It took an hour of driving and trying to make it happen to get it to occur.


This does not happen very often, but It seems to be related to being at around 40 mph and hitting a bump a certain way. The truck is a 1995 2wd long bed manual transmission. I don't think this is the death wobble people have described since it is not coming from the front end and the truck is 2wd. My U-joints all appear to be tight and I can't find any loose bolts in the rear suspension. I can wiggle the center bearing on the drive shaft about 1/4 inch. Any ideas what is causing this? The only things that I can think of are a problem with the driveshaft, or something is causing one of the brakes to lock and unlock rapidly. Any ideas?

 

[Cole Dean]

My guess is the carrier bearing. Had the same issue on my 96, 2001, and 2008. Carrier bearing was shot on all three. There should be zero play in that joint i believe

 

[BigPapa]

The bearing will move in the rubber as onstottc said his did, but, 1/4" sounds a bit excessive.

 

[Cole Dean]

The bearing will move in the rubber as onstottc said his did, but, 1/4" sounds a bit excessive.

Yes, it was really just a guess, but on mine whatever the speed was to get the harmonics out of sync was when the shaft starting rotating in an ellipse vs a circle and the vibration was quite severe

 

[onstottc]

Does the bearing wear out or is it the rubber that wears out? Does it cause violent shaking?

 

[Cole Dean]

Does the bearing wear out or is it the rubber that wears out? Does it cause violent shaking?

Usually the rubber, but my 2008 the bearing came out in pieces. And yep, it will scare the hell out of you when it does it. I wouldnt drive it much if at all with a bad carrier. Hard on the TC, Diff, and if it seperates that driveshaft will be like a big swinging steel jumprope

 

[gcorron]

Make sure that both leaf spring shackles are still attached.

George