Name this sound. U-joint?

Need help tracking down the sound. Sounds like it's coming from the drive shaft directly in the solid portion... It's fairly new. Sort of a creaking sound. Only happens when I shift into a gear right at the beginning. I typically grease my u-joints and drive shaft every oil change. Have never heard this before. Is this what a failing u-joint sounds like?

https://youtu.be/UcuTlsUoC2U

 

To me, it sounds like it’s coming from the fucking drive shaft.

 

There are some splines where the drive shaft meets the carrier bearing. There is a flange held on by a nut, the flange interfaces with these spline. I'm not talking about the slip yoke. I had this issue with a Tacoma, the splines either get worn or the nut comes loose.

Pull the flange off and put some heavy grease on the splines. See if that fixes it.

 

My description kind of sucks, but I can sketch it and attach if you need. You can't see the splines unless you pull the flange off.

 

Ok. I replaced the carrier a year or so ago so I'm pretty sure I have an idea of where you're referring to.
@KNABORES lol it literally sounds like it's loudest dead center where there are zero moving anything's.

 

I had to re-watch the video to get the reference. I genuinely chuckled when it registered.

 

Oh, and I like to put on stereo headphones when listening to stuff like this because a lot of phones record in stereo.

Clearly, it's coming from the right channel, so it's towards the carrier bearing from where you're recording.

The 2 seconds of video from the 8s-9s mark are the best part of this video for tracking, because you can see the shaft rotation and the carrier bearing at the same time.

I can't tell what it is, but it sounds like it's coming from the fucking carrier bearing to me. Almost like the sound you hear when hand-torquing lug nuts tight.

Every carrier bearing has some play. Have you tried lifting the shaft while rotating to see if it happens? That'd be my next step.

 

I sounds exactly like hand torquing!

I haven't tried lifting and spinning. I'll chalk it and throw it in neutral and try when I get home.
I wonder if I forgot to grease the splines and was supposed to after swapping the new carrier in...

 

Right here in steps 1 and 2 I assume.

 

Yeah, the point of my comment was basically that - I use a crossbar to tighten my lug nuts because I'm old school and it's never failed me yet (EDIT: but with custom wheels I'll always use a torque wrench)

When you get a lug nut tight, then put that last ugga-dugga on it, when the metal skips across metal (with the washered allow wheel lug nuts I've got), it makes a similar metal-on-metal chatter.

 

That's it. I had the same symptoms. Hopefully grease will fix you up.

 

Slow it down to 25% and watch at :09. The driveshaft on both sides of the carrier bearing appear to move together. If it was skipping several splines -- which I think it would have to do to make that sound, I imagine we'd see one part of the shaft move significantly more than the other. Maybe not?

 

They won't skip, they just get sloppy and rusty. The castle nut has a pin but somehow you end up with just enough slop to make noise.

 

Shit, I hope not. Probably won't have time to tackle til Sunday evening. Hopefully a couple hundred miles of driving between now and then won't hurt or further anything...

 

Wouldn't a sloppy joint just clunk, rather than making the ratcheting sound we're hearing?

 

I might be wrong. I had a similar sound and that is what caused it on mine.

 

I get this on occasion too and I used to think it was a crack in some mount/frame reinforcement or something that applied alternating pressure /torque across the crack when I shifted from drive to reverse. I've scoured my frame and can't find anything at all anywhere for the life of me. Never though to video it with the wife - but this does sound like what I've got going on too.

Can castle but be torqued down a little more to get to next hole?

 

Not sure what ya mean by the next hole...replaced the carrier bearing probably a year ago, can't for the life of me remember if I greased the spline. It just started making the noise in the last couple weeks tops.
Gonna try and drop driveshaft, grease and check torque values in that area in next couple days to see if that helps. Will update hopefully with a solution.

 

You probably can.

 

I don't remember having to use anything special to remove and install the new carrier bearing but to grease the splines should I get a puller to not destroy the new one that I put on? I swear it just slid off but honestly don't remember. Also my grease zerks are all lined up the same direction except the one at the front that goes into the transmission. I've read that they should all be the same way? I don't have any vibes to speak of. Almost started this today but I'm pretty sure carpal tunnel if fucking with my wrist right now so I had to put it off and just grease u-joints to see if that helped. No dice....

 

Greased, did the trick!
I assume nobody torques the flange bolts unless they own some odd specialty torque wrench.

 

Excellent! Nothing better than a cheap fix. Glad it worked out.

 

Thanks for the input