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help needed with driveshaft alignment please

durk80

durk80

Member
Joined
Nov 17, 2015
Location
South GA
I've been having some issues with vibration in first and second gear, so today I took the driveshaft out, marked it, and was able to get one u-joint in. I wanted to see if the front yoke that can slide out was aligned correctly. I found one arrow on the other half of the driveshaft, but no arrow on the yoke. There is a bunch of indents in a row on both sides of the shaft. Does one simply line it up as best possible by keeping them in the same plane, or simply just put the sliding portion of the yoke back in after the u-joint is installed? I'm probably overthinking it, but it's not making sense to me. Thank you for sharing your knowledge with me.
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M47-Drive-Shaft.jpg
 
On the driveshaft with u-joints at each end you need to have the bearing caps in the same plane just like the drawing shows them. If they aren't, you will get a significant vibration. It isn't a balance issue. It becomes a binding issue when they are out of phase.
 
Thank you, 2manyturbos. I'm guessing that I don't need to worry about part number 12 being in the correct spot as long as the bearing caps are in the same plane? Here it is all assembled. I'm hoping I did correctly.
IMG-20230429-164034-397.jpg
IMG-20230429-164053-020.jpg
 
dl242gt said:
Looks good from here. There are alignment arrows on each section on the M47 driveshaft. Take your time and install it well.
Click to expand...

2manyturbos said:
On the driveshaft with u-joints at each end you need to have the bearing caps in the same plane just like the drawing shows them. If they aren't, you will get a significant vibration. It isn't a balance issue. It becomes a binding issue when they are out of phase.
Click to expand...
Well, I have the dreaded vibration at 30-35 miles. What precisely do I need to do to fix it? Do I have to drop the entire driveshaft again? Since the yoke (#9) slipped out of the shaft, do I have to try all 17 possible combinations to get the bearings in the right phase? I attempted to line up the arrows as best as I could, but the bearing is in the way. I'm truly at a loss of what I did wrong. The previous guibo was toast, and I lost the alignment mark up front. Does this matter? Stupid me!
 
If I were to come look at this, I'd inspect 3 things:

1) Make sure the two halves are properly aligned. The marks are on it.

2) The u-joints you installed are not too tight/loose.

3) Engine and transmission mounts.
 
When you got done installing the ujoints. Did you make sure they all were free and not binding? It's normal after installing them they are bound up a bit and you just wack them them a plastic or rubber hammer and they go free.
 
I thought I found the problem today. I had the centering pin piece bolted onto the giubo and the driveshaft and trans bolted up.

IMG-20230502-171613-330.jpg


I found another thread on here, but the pictures were no longer available; however, it said to bolt the center yellow triangle piece that slips onto the transmission shaft like this:
IMG-20230502-184221-461.jpg

Sorry for the blurriness above. The transmission flange and the centering pin are sandwiched together behind the three bolts and torqued to 30 ft/lbs each.

IMG-20230502-185133-251.jpg

The driveshaft is then bolted connected to the giubo. I of course tightened the nuts that were not shown in this picture to 30 ft/lbs. also. I will have to try whacking the u-joints a bit before disassembling it again to see if that changes anything. Right now at 40 mph it starts to vibrate, but not as bad as yesterday:rofl:
 
shoestring said:
If I were to come look at this, I'd inspect 3 things:

1) Make sure the two halves are properly aligned. The marks are on it.

2) The u-joints you installed are not too tight/loose.

3) Engine and transmission mounts.
Click to expand...
Thank you shoestring for the suggestions. I'm not afraid to admit that I don't know how to line up the two halves of the driveshaft together with the large bearing in the way. What would be the best method?
One of the u-joint cups didn't want to go in as easily as the rest; however it went in eventually. Should I just give them a couple whacks with a mallet? I could feel a bit of binding at 10-20 mph. Both of the mounts were recently replaced 2 years ago. I didn't notice any separation on the trans or motor mounts.
 
dl242gt said:
When you got done installing the ujoints. Did you make sure they all were free and not binding? It's normal after installing them they are bound up a bit and you just wack them them a plastic or rubber hammer and they go free.
Click to expand...
They were a little tight and I hit them with the plastic mallet to loosen them up. I didn't hit them once the driveshaft was on the car though. I will try this first when I come home from work tomorrow. Thank you again!
 
In addition to the arrows as descried above, I've always found that there are yellow dots on both shafts. In the first picture you show of your shaft, it looks like I can see the dot on the nearside half, very near to the giubo. They may not line up perfectly, but there is definitely a "best" position.
 
shoestring said:
In addition to the arrows as descried above, I've always found that there are yellow dots on both shafts. In the first picture you show of your shaft, it looks like I can see the dot on the nearside half, very near to the giubo. They may not line up perfectly, but there is definitely a "best" position.
Click to expand...
I will try that. I wish that it was keyed or marked at the factory. I'd like to detach the front and middle section of the driveshaft and try to slip it in. Then reattach everything. Do you know if there is any way of telling if it is wrongly assembled while on the jack stands?
 
Two of the cups were loose when I pulled side to side. I didn't realize it when I rotated the driveshaft as I thought it was just the lash in the gears. I took out the retaining clip and banged on them while they were on the vehicle with the mallet and socket, gave them some grease, and installed the clips. Everything is great up to 55-62 mph. In this range I'm getting noticeable vibrations.
 
Maybe it is a wheel/tire vibration. How are the engine mounts and torque rod bushings. There are phone apps for measuring angles. I would be interested in a phone app for measuring Hertz frequency. I did a good NVH class where we used a reed tachometer (old school) and also a Picoscope and an accelerometer to measure if it was a wheel, propshaft, or engine vibration.
 
Well at least the driveshaft wasn't like mine in my 93. There is a chunk missing on the splines on my car and that is the only way the driveshaft goes back together. It won't slide the splines in any other alignment. Not sure how that chunk became missing but I think it may have been an accident. It was like that the first time I took it apart.
 
ZVOLV said:
Maybe it is a wheel/tire vibration. How are the engine mounts and torque rod bushings. There are phone apps for measuring angles. I would be interested in a phone app for measuring Hertz frequency. I did a good NVH class where we used a reed tachometer (old school) and also a Picoscope and an accelerometer to measure if it was a wheel, propshaft, or engine vibration.
Click to expand...
There's also an inclinometer app which I used to check to check the differences in the angles on the driveshaft. They were all within a degree. The video I watched said it would be okay as long as its not greater than 3 degrees. I'd love to get a junk phone with a hertz meter and strap it on the diff to see if that is where the noise is coming from.
 
dl242gt said:
Well at least the driveshaft wasn't like mine in my 93. There is a chunk missing on the splines on my car and that is the only way the driveshaft goes back together. It won't slide the splines in any other alignment. Not sure how that chunk became missing but I think it may have been an accident. It was like that the first time I took it apart.
Click to expand...
Oh wow. Does it vibrate at all? I thought that I read on the UK Volvo club site that in 93 they made them so that they would only fit together one way.
 
It actually doesn't vibrate at all. Even after having a catastrophic fail of the driveshaft support. Maybe removing a spline is what they did to make it fit only one way but in any case it's still working after 440k so no complaints.
 
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