Mystery Damage

So I got a weird issue that I wanted you experts to take a look at. I picked up the Jeep from getting gears installed 2 days ago and when driving home I noticed a pretty good vibration above 70 MPH that never used to be there. The shop was closed so couldn't call. I drove it today vibration is still there so I took a look and this is what I see on the yoke (picutres here). Now I have no idea how this could even happen. The damage is on both sides of the yoke and looks extremely fresh. This seems to me like exactly what is causing my vibration. Question is can you think of anyway I possibly could have done this on the trail? The shop over the phone gave me massive attitude and more or less called me a liar (now understand at this point the shop has not seen the damage, I have accused them of nothing and I've only sent them the pics I have here). I can change a yoke myself and think fighting this might not be worth it, but just wanted to see if you guys might know how this damage could have occurred. Also the pinion now leaks which of course it didnt when I took it to them.

I’m not an expert but that looks like teeth marks from a pipe wrench that was used to hold the yoke while the pinion nut was tightened. To me it looks more cosmetic and the vibration may be more associated with how good of a job was done on your gears or with a bad u joint. Hopefully you get it figured out without too much hassle.


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Definitely a pipe wrench did that but your vibration is more likely caused by the higher rpm's the drivetrain is turning!

DocTremp said:

I’m not an expert but that looks like teeth marks from a pipe wrench that was used to hold the yoke while the pinion nut was tightened. To me it looks more cosmetic and the vibration may be more associated with how good of a job was done on your gears or with a bad u joint. Hopefully you get it figured out without too much hassle.


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You know soon as I posted this I thought to myself looks like someone got a bit aggressive with a pipe wrench during install. So maybe not the cause of the vibration then? The pinion doesn't look seated in the seal so its either crooked or the seal is, either way the leak definitely needs to be addressed at a minimum.

USAF_XJ said:

You know soon as I posted this I thought to myself looks like someone got a bit aggressive with a pipe wrench during install. So maybe not the cause of the vibration then? The pinion doesn't look seated in the seal so its either crooked or the seal is, either way the leak definitely needs to be addressed at a minimum.

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I agree that the shop that did the job needs to fix the leak and track down the cause of the vibration. I would hope that they would any way


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RCP Phx said:

Definitely a pipe wrench did that but your vibration is more likely caused by the higher rpm's the drivetrain is turning!

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I can believe that. A minor vibration at 60 or even 65 can become quite the howl at 70. All it takes is a little more speed or rpm sometimes to really bring out the demons.

I have to wonder about a shop that does gears and needs to use a pipe wrench to hold the pinion. It is not hard to make a proper tool to do that job.

So I removed the front drive shaft and took her up to 80 MPH. The vibration (almost a buzz its such a high frequency) is a lot better, not completely gone but much better. I'm thinking maybe take the drive shaft in and see if it needs balancing. That would resolve some of the vibes but not all of them and I swear before the gears this thing was pretty damn smooth at 75, but I can live with a little vibration considering its a 98 with a 5.5 lift and 33s I know it wont feel like a 2020 Tacoma or anything.

Apparently their reputation is worth less than $47, the price of a new yoke.

A properly used pipe wrench would not cause that much damage, hopefully they have more skill setting up gears !

Someone used a pipe wrench to loosen and/or tighten the yoke, and then a belt sander or file to try and hide the damage.....

With that said, I'd suspect all of the work they did at this point.....

TRCM said:

Someone used a pipe wrench to loosen and/or tighten the yoke, and then a belt sander or file to try and hide the damage.....

With that said, I'd suspect all of the work they did at this point.....

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+1

And given their initial response I would start lining up ducks to take them to small claims, file a BBB report and anything else that could help ameloriate the damage to the pocket book and the likelihood of future victims.

x3 on the apprentice marks.

x3 on the gearing making a minor driveshaft vibration into a major one. How's the pinion angle front and rear?

looks like seal is leaking too. def suspect work

that seal looks like it's boogered up above the yoke, and a new seal should not leak after gear work even if they did reuse the yoke... had they cleaned up the seal surface as you should and installed the seal correctly that is.

The yoke marks are definitely from a pipe wrench. I have been known to use such methods on my own junk piles while doing gear work, but I'd be pretty embarrassed to send that kind of mess out if I was doing this professionally. Making a yoke holder is a trivial welding project or you can buy one for anywhere from $17 to $120 online. Now that I found that out reading up to write this post I'll probably just buy one instead of making one or chewing up any more of my yokes :gee:

So I took it back and they insist the damage was from a pipe wrench only. They must have gotten really aggressive with that wrench, oh well. They replace the seal and sent the drive shaft out and it was apparently quite a bit out of balance. I'll pick it up today and see if they at least fixed the leak and how the newly balanced shaft works out.