I had some major vibrations while driving highway today, and I got down under the truck and it turned out that 2 of my driveshaft bolts were coming loose and the Fabtech driveshaft spacer was clanking against the differential mount. Luckily a guy I live with has an extensive tool collection so I re-torqued the bolts.

I know this is just normal wear. I originally had the lift installed at a friend's shop, and after 500 miles took it to a more local shop to have everything re-tightened (per Fabtech's instructions). After 2000 miles, I took it to a ANOTHER shop to have the front driveshaft re-clocked, and they re-tightened everything for a THIRD time....and here 8k miles later stuff is loosening up again. Now I know my truck is off the pavement a little more than most, but I still recommend that you lifted guys get everything re-tightened and checked out every 5-10k miles or so just to be safe, I know from now on I sure as hell will.

Here's some pictures:





On a better note, the truck is going to roll over 100k soon and still drives as strong as new. I have 4.88 gears going in shortly, and I couldn't be happier with how it is holding up.

 

Glad you caught it and got it fixed. Feels good when your over 100K and she still runs strong....



Zane

 

Did you use some sort of Loc-tite on it this time?

 

x2 on the loctite

is it the blue or red that is supposed to be permanent?

 

Red is permanent, blue is semi-permanent.

 

good thing you caught that in time, much better to get some vibes and check it out than have a drive shaft shred the underside of the truck I'll have to check on my stuff cause i cant say i ever have, just check the bolts on the lift for the most part..

 

Nice save!

 

X3 Use the permanent, it will come loose if you have to take it apart- but that definitely won't be happening again, and you don't have to worry about checking the torque every so often either! Just takes a little more muscle to get her apart.

 

Reminds me that I need to recheck all my fasteners and retorque. Blue LocTite should be enough to do the job but curious as to what MSall used. I have a front cv-spacer and used Blue but if it comes loose, I will most definitely goop some Red on there.

 

no dont use red, blue will be plenty to hold it in securely.

only thing you use red on is crank bolts that goes through the harmonic balancer

 

x2 on catching it in time. ive seen old bronco almost roll (their u joint broke tho) from the drive shaft slicing open the tire on the highway

 

Technically, Henkel's Loctite threadlockers are not sold as a "permanent" or "temporary", but rather, in accordance with the size and torque ratings of the threads they will be locking (with blue being less strong than red).

With that out of the way, it's good that you are attentive to your vehicle and responded to its vibration; far too many drivers would have ignored the problem until the driveshaft went through their floor board. Luckily my lift hasn't had any issues with bolts backing out yet (28,000 miles later), but I still check from time to time.

As for turning over 100k miles, congrats. We sold our '06 work truck at 264k... it was still running strong.

 

Normal wear is for your shaft bolts to come loose?

 

You might want to give the u-joints a look over. Something is causing those bolts to back off and it's probably some amount of vibration you're not noticing because they aren't quite bad enough to create a lot of vibration. Having had lifted vehicles in the past, they are hard on u-joints and need to be inspected periodically.

 

I'm always one to stop as soon as I notice something isn't right. This one was way too noticeable though. At first I thought it might just be the tires on a rough part of road, but when the plastic dash started buzzing loudly and my rear view started dancing around, I knew it was something more.

I most definitly will. We have had U-joint problems on our 03 chevy in the past, and its 100% stock.

I will definitly get some loktite on there shortly.