So I'm over 210k miles and I hear that drone/whine coming from the rear end when I take my foot off the pedal going downhill. Also a little on accelerating.
The rear end was re-done at 125k miles (according to my uncle who owned the truck before me).
So I figure it was (or partly was) the u-joints. So I buy some nice new spicer non grease-able u-joints and put them in. Wasn't too hard, torches the old ones til the plastic oozed out, and have a u-joint press so it wasn't tough.
Put it all back together and figure I am good to go. Get on the highway and start to feel a vibration at 70mph. Uhggg.
So trying to figure out what it is, and realize I didn't mark the yoke and so I can't be sure I didn't rotate the yoke 180 degrees when I put it back together.
So, pull the shaft again, press out the u-joints again, (this time very easy), rotate, re-assemble.
Hit the highway to test and the damn vibration is still there. Uhhgg x 2.
So take the drive shaft to a local place that specializes in drive shafts and drop it off to get balanced.
Get a call today, says the drive shaft run-out is excessive (.021 and .024 IIRC). Wants $500 to weld in a new pipe (salvaging my bran new U-joints)
I said no thank you and picked up my shaft. He still charged me $60.
I have to drive to NY -> Florida this weekend so I can't do it with this shaft so there is another Tahoe here. Doesn't get drive much. So I swap the shafts. This one has 150k miles on it.
Highway test went fine so I'm good to go to FL this weekend. But the bad shaft with the new joints is still in the other tahoe. Not that it'll ever get on the highway, its more of a spare car for short trips. But I started looking at new shafts on rockauto and Napa. About $350 give or take. (for my rear wheel drive tahoe).
Anyone have experience with a replacement or aftermarket shaft? Or should I just try to get one from a junk yard?