Okay, im back. The rear u-joint is making the racket. I jacked up the truck and spun the tires and found the noise. I loaded it with grease to no avail. Gonna replace it tomorrow.

Wow, dont you hate it when you jump to conclusions? Never heard a u-joint like this before....

The clutch pushing in noise was related to the clutch fork. Sorry, like I said last night, I was not thinking correctly! I think I got like... 6 hours of sleep on the weekend haha!

 

Ahhhh.......the nefarious clutch fork! Do you know if you have the retainer clips installed on the fork correctly?

 

well, over the weekend I was suffering from sleep deprivation and my yota started making noise.
do you think it might be related to the dust in my eyelashes?

 

Maybe you unwittingly slipped into an alternate reality.....

 

Im quite sure of it. Pretty sure its just the stupid fork that rusted and started to rub..

Haha!!

 

Okay, well kinda an update for you guys...

Went and picked up a u-joint. Pulled the shaft, got the old u-joint out and there is a problem!

Seems the previous owner had a new driveshaft made. It seems the driveshaft uses a cap that is 1.063" (or so) with the american style clips and the toyota is a good size bigger (with the internal c-clips).. No local parts stores have the caps that I can buy...

With luck I found the company that made the driveshaft (Danco) has a shop about 40 mins from me. Im gonna call them in the morning and see what they can do for me...

So, if I need to use my truck (and I might) am I safe to putt around in fwd for now? Im obviously not gonna drive anywhere I dont need to, but if I have to go.... is it okay? Especially for longer distances on road... No more then an hour and a half there and back..

 

I would most certainly not drive on just the fronts.... if you have to putt around town or somethin...you should be fine, but to go more than say 10mi at speeds over 40mph...who knows...might be ok, might not...is it worth it?

 

I did however have an f-150 that I drove on just the front for about 9 months, that was also sfa.

 

not too many places will carry just the caps; there's different size shanks on the the joint itself and everything, so there's realy no "universal" caps of certain sizes.

before getting a hole new damn shaft, I'd bring the old u-joint up to a parts house and see if maybe you match it up with one they might have in stock.

I use to do it just about every day when I worked at Advance Auto Parts and these guys came in with these frankenstein mud trucks that had Chevy trannys and Dodge or Ford rear-ends... that was a lot of fun... no body ever knew what they had...

But yeah, I'de say bring your old u-joint and a mic/caliper/accurate-measuring-device-of-your-choise up there with you and see if you can find anything first.

 

Like I had said, I already went to the parts stores with the new u-joint and old u-joint. They couldnt help me..

Thank goodness the guys who made this stupid shaft have a store near me.. Im gonna give them a ring to see if they can supply me with the joint I need.. I got the girlfriend to cart my arse around tomorrow... I really don't want to drive it around with no rear shaft, its only cool when you dont run a front one


On a side note, how much play should that center carrier bushing thing have? I think mines almost pooched... I think its time to go to a 1 peice driveshaft!!!!!

 

U-joint was purchased and installed. Guys who made the shaft didn't have one, but they sent me to a shop down the road that did... 53 bucks for one stupid rare u-joint.

Need to grease all the other zerk fittings on the shafts now.

Still woundering about the center bushing/bearing on the shaft..

 

From the symptoms you describe it sounds like one of the countershaft bearings is bad. Does the noise disappear in 4th gear?

 

Well, all noises stopped after I replaced the bum u-joint. I just jumped to conclusions I guess thats what lack of sleep does to me...