Ranger Mods

Has any one noticed the rear tail shaft yokes are not in line. I have checked a few and don't know why ford do this.

Moved from show off your rig to drive line forum.

Honestly I haven't taken that much notice. Are you saying between the diff and the centre bearing, so the diff is not central to the vehicle?

No I mean the rear tail shaft, after the centre bearing. All the info from drive shaft suppliers [ Spicer etc. ] call it phasing with means the universal yokes must line up when assembled after the slip joint has been dissembled to relace rubber boot or to lube spline. You can google driveline vibrations
and phasing there is some good diagrams and info for lifted vehicles.

Ok now I know what you mean. The assumption is Ford done this to minimise vibration.

Ok thanks, it just doesn't add up to my mechanic training

Removed tail shaft and aligned yokes to get unis on the same plain result was less vibration with 2 inch lift.

How did you align the yokes? You wouldn't happen to have step by step instructions with pictures?

Did it remove or just lessen the vibrations?

hoges wrote: ↑Mon Mar 26, 2018 4:42 pm Removed tail shaft and aligned yokes to get unis on the same plain result was less vibration with 2 inch lift.

Google drive line phasing and alignment, there's heaps of info from Spicer driveline, step by step you tube etc. All you do is remove uni yoke at diff (after marking to put back in same place) pull out spline at slip joint and align yokes. Perfect uni harmony & smooth drive line.

hoges wrote: ↑Thu Mar 29, 2018 12:16 pm Google drive line phasing and alignment, there's heaps of info from Spicer driveline, step by step you tube etc. All you do is remove uni yoke at diff (after marking to put back in same place) pull out spline at slip joint and align yokes. Perfect uni harmony & smooth drive line.

Did it totally eliminate the issue on take off and do you still have the spacers under the centre bearing?

some times on take off a slight shudder, but completely smooth as before I could not remove a vibe at 100km, 1 flat 60 thou washer under centre bearing and 3 degree castor wedges by snake racing.

Have not had time to visit shop yet so have put centre bearing back to standard with 1 washer spacer. Aligned UJ's through the whole drive line and left my 2 degree caster wedges in place.

So far there is still some vibration on take off but after that there is a huge improvement through the rev range and road speed. Tested out to approx 180 with no vibration so will now work on the pinion angle to remove the take off vibration. Road speed does feel totally different with a balanced drive line, 110 on the Hume was actually a boring and felt like 80 and hard acceleration feels slower. 80 on the Tulla feels like walking would be quicker.

Going to work on the assumption that the pinion angle should be the same angle as the front half of the tail shaft and allow a further 1 degree for axle windup.

Yes Stew it made a hell of a difference when I lined up the yokes and set the drive line angles on my 50mm lift, I used the clinometer app on my phone to align the pinion to front shaft angle. still get a touch of wind up on certain stop starts, it doesn't do it with diff locked so methinks its because it is an open diff placing load on one leaf pack it seems to be the RHS one my ranger, fuel tank weight on LHS might have a influence. Keep us tuned mate. Also I fitted the 140 frontier tank after reading the posts keep up the good work.

Hi guys,

I'm currently working through setting the driveline angles on my ranger with a 2inch lift to remove the vibration. I think I'm almost there.
Everything I've read says the uni's must be in phase (which they aren't on the ranger).
To rotate the slip yoke is it just a matter of unbolting the flange from the diff, pulling the yoke out of the driveshaft, rotating and then reassembling?

Thanks
Simon

Just had a chance to measure pinion angle vs front driveshaft. There is approx 6 degrees difference which is an issue.

When time permits I’m going to put my 2 degree wedges in back to front. I’m going to tilt to pinion angle upwards rather than down. My calcs tell me reversing the wedges would equal a 4 degree lift of the pinion angle which should mean there should only be about 2 degrees difference. If I need another degree then I will pull the 1.5 mm washers that are under the centre bearing.

Above post. They are out of phase to help reduce vibration but when lifted it appears that in phase is an improvement. Yes undo 4 bolts on diff, first remove one of the clamps holding the dust seal on or it will not slide off far enough, pull out turn one spline from memory and slide back in, refit clamp.

If I get this right after spinning the wedges I will then take it in to be balance. Something as simple as the boot clamp in a different position could unbalance the shaft.

Out of curiosity what angles do you guys have on your driveline? I've currently got these with the centre bearing carrier in the factory position

Output flange - 3.1° down
Front shaft - 7° down
Rear shaft - 8.2° down
Pinion - 9.4° down

My leafs came with castor wedges but I'm unsure of the angle and obviously need more nose down at the pinion to align it to the front shaft

Cant remember the angles but the pinion angle should be the same as the front shaft angle, also the thick end of the taper on the caster wedges faces the rear to raise the pinion angle I used 3 degree. My drive line is so smooth at any speed.

I took my castor wedges out and now have 7.4° at the pinion which is still more than the front shaft at 7.1°. I spaced the centre bearing to make those angles the same but still get vibration on takeoff.
Is the rest of your driveline standard? The 3 Uni joint setup?

Had a quick chance to spin my castor wedges around. As per hoges, fat part to the back.

Quick measurement gave me readings of pinion angle to within .5 degree of the front drive shaft. I'm not sure of my original idea to bring the pinion angle down but anyway this has brought talk off shudder down to a very minimal amount and has made an improvement again across the rev range.

So, so far 1.5mm washer under centre bearing, align yolks and 2 degree castor wedges. I will not play with spacing or not spacing the centre bearing to see if I can gain a further improvement.

I won't list the exact degrees as I do not have level ground and I cannot default the protractor on the phone to centre. I do not want to buy one just for this purpose unless I have too.

Great to hear mate aligning the uni yokes works a treat also

Removed washers = worse.
Add 2 washers = about the same vibration as 1 washer.

Would be nice to have some different degree wedges to play with. I still will at some point go have a chat with someone so see if an economical solution can be sorted. Looking a the angles it would be nicer if the centre bearing sat higher and inline with the gear box. I don't understand why it doesn't from factory as there appears to be a ton of room.

Stewart you could put a spacing packer between the diff and wedge (at the rear) for a test drive. Is your wheels balance OK. My driveline is smooth as at any speed

Yes mate, wheel balance 100%. Did it at my mates workshop the other week. I didn't settle until they read OK, which is perfect balance.

I filled tank today and there is next to no vibration on take off. 2 degree wedges and 2 washers under centre bearing seems to be the best I will get without spending lots of time.

Overall all speeds are smooth and with the wheel balance done it is a lot nicer to drive around. One wheel was out 80 grams and I have removed about half the weight of what was originally on them.

Ok im going to attempt this myself to see if i can get smooth rear end at speeds and rid of majority of the vibration on takeoff.

Just a couple of questions, want diff angle to be paralell to transmission at the pinions? and the top and bottom driveshafts essentially straight, meaning ill have to play around with the centre bearing washers to get it there?

Generally what size wedges have people put in to get it close to right with a 2 inch lift (300kg leafs)

Talking to a suspension guy yesterday who said the first thing to try is to flip the centre bearing spacer 180 degrees as that generally fixes it. If not, then there are spacer kits available.

Being 2 piece tailshaft the idea is for the pinion angle to be the same angle as front tailshaft.