When I bought my maverick it had been sitting in a garage for several years. I have everything ready for a test drive and it had a BAD vibration. My first thought was tires, so I switched them out and that seemed to fix the majority of the vibration. BUT here is my problem. I have 2 vibrations. One is in the motor when you rev it up you can feel it vibrate at a certain RPM. The other seems to come from the trans tunnel when you are going down the road at 45-60 mph. The problem is that the engine vibration is consistant with RPM, but the driveline one will come and go. The only thing I can see after I pulled the driveshaft to check the u-joints is excessive wear in the tail housing bushing. You can even move the tailshaft up and down when the driveshaft is removed. Should you be able to move that tail shaft very much, and what could be the engine vibration? Bad Damper? Oh it is an original 1-owner 302-C4 Grabber car. The motor and trans have never been out of the car.
there should be no play in the tail housing bushing, if there is its a good bet thats your drive line vibration, but there should be no movement in the tail housing itself, the mount will give a little, letting you move the tail housing along with the whole trans some, check the bolts holding it to the case, but if they were loose you would be loosing trans oil, as far as the engine vibration, check the harmomic balancer, it might have slipped.
If the whole transmission is moving up and down then you might check the transmission mount. It has rubber in it that mighyt be warn. If its just the tailshaft moving you've got something loose there.
after reading your post again, you said you could move the tail shaft up and down, well, thats not a problem, cause you see, the drive shaft goes over the tail shaft, and rides on the tail housing bushing, so with the drive shaft out, the tail shaft could be moved around, but if you can still move the drive shaft up and down with it installed, then the bushing needs to be renued.
usually a drive shaft vibration is from a bad ujoint or colapsed transmission mount. with age of the car i would try the trans mount first. the motor vibration could be the balancer is going bad. ford uses a rubber liner between two metal rings. this rubber degrades and allows the outer selve to slip this can create a vibration. you can look at the balancer and see the rubber from the front. it will be all cracked just from being old but it should not be oily or have gaps in it. it it slips the timing marks will be off. if you use a piston stop to find top dead center #1 you can verify if the balancer has sliped.
Well I am going to change that bushing and seal when I get a chance. While I am at it since I have to pull the mount to get the housing off I am gonna put a new trans mount in too.Plus I am going to check that balancer too. The car is parked in the garage and is going to stay there until I get both fixed. This is the first time I have ever had eingine and driveline vibrations. Hopefully I will get them both fixed soon. I don't like having a nice garage ornament. Thanks for all your input.
i really doubt you need to change the bushing. unless the yoke is scored up where it rides in the buishing. then you will want to change the yoke at the same time. with the drive shaft out you will be able to move the out put shaft.
if you can borrow the correct tool, you won't need to remove the housing to replace the bushing and seal.
You probably don't need the rear bushing unless the seal has been leaking. If you take your driveline to the local driveline shop they can check it for straightness and balance. Check to be sure the balancer and engine are the same imbalance. Check that the balancer has not slipped. Check the balance on your tires. Before you do anything check your tune up.
Engine vibs: I wud check my vaccum lines and make sure no holes/cracks are in them. I wud also chk my plugs and wires B4 doing anything else to the engine. As far as drive line -- It cud be any of the things mention in this thread. It's most likely will be resolved thru a process of elimination.
I finally made it home and the bushing,rear seal and housing gasket made it in. I hopefully will get a chance to pull the driveshaft and check the bushing on it before the removal of the extension housing. I did lay under the front of the car and looked at the balacer the best I could, and it was full of muddy.grimy junk. I cleaned that out the best I could but I haven't fired the motor up yet to see if that help with the engine vibe. Thanks again for everyones help. This is one of the best forums I have ever been a member of. Maybe I shoulda bought a Mav years ago...LOL!!!
