• Hello Guest, welcome to the initial stages of our new platform!
    You can find some additional information about where we are in the process of migrating the board and setting up our new software here

    Thank you for being a part of our community!

DL Driveline rumble.

J

JohnLane

300+ Member
300+ Club
Joined
Nov 19, 2002
Location
Northern Washington
Hey Guys.......

I searched and find only grumbles about how we deal with the dreaded DL Driveshaft rumble.

The 1980 242 DL that was Mom's is going to get some attention.......

As I understand it we solve this with changing the length of rear suspension torque rods.

Would any of you have a measurement for how long the torque rods need to be to make the driveshaft shhhhhhhhhhhhhh?

Yes; U-Joints are perfect, bushings are fine ect ect ect.

Thanks!

John Lane
 
My 80 242DL did exactly this. Annoying as hell.

Could have sworn it had a crappy u-joint or bent axle shaft or messed up hub or something crazy or bent or messed up rim or flat-spot tire. Or some piece of rubber not cooperating somewhere, bushings, trans mount, driveline support or bearing etc. None of the above, even though, usually the simplest answer is the best answer, and I have solved a problem much like this with any/some/all of those.

I ended up installing "good used" upper arms from a 3-speed automatic 81 B21F car (can't wear out easily on that thing!).

And installing the vibration dampers on the axle tube volvo used on some cars that were having vibration problems. They clamp on and face forward and are big blocks of rubber.

No more noise. Wish I had measured the arms I put in it. The car is now gone. Sorry JL. You aren't crazy though, if it makes you feel any better for all that time tearing your hair out or changing a driveline, axle, wheels, tires or anything else around on it and checking or measuring many parts that can vibrate/rumble from ~35-40mph on up?
 
Last edited:
945ti said:
And installing the vibration dampers on the axle tube volvo used on some cars that were having vibration problems. They clamp on and face forward and are big blocks of rubber.
Click to expand...

Just big blocks of rubber that clamp on the axle? More info on this please.
 
I had a issue with torque rods on my 245, they were the older style, with small bushings...so long story short I had some rumble in the driveline, so I measured old ones with bushings and newer style rods with bushings, soooo the older style (probably the ones you have) have longer distance between the bushing holes 41,5cm and newer style is 40cm. So you can try with newer style ones and see what happens, worked for me.
 
propav8r said:
Just big blocks of rubber that clamp on the axle? More info on this please.
Click to expand...

I think dealerships or volvo installed these on some cars. Some 240s have them and others don't. I suspect dealer install, but I wasn't around when most of the cars that had these were being repaired or produced.

Obviously, volvo or a dealership wouldn't be in a hurry to 'fess up to building or selling cars with vibration problems, so information on those may be limited. They'd probably also rather sell you tons of parts to throw at it until you grew tired or fixing it and traded it in for an FWD volvo or some such...I'm not cynical at all, am I? Then you would have jumped off the high dive from the rim of the frying pan into the fire rather nicely. Or throw parts at it based on what you could afford and then put the dampers on there would be another possibility.

I've used old style arms before in stock, slow, N/A cars across the board, since the bushings seem longer lived in them. Some of that is also probably because most here are behind B21F cars that make no power whatever. Interesting Milos. I think we may have a winner with a definite answer. The 81 arms I installed were still early type, but were shorter by something like that amount. Maybe they had a bad batch of upper arms? That sounds possible...
 
Last edited:
A need for shorter arms seems believable. As the bushings wear everything (+ I'm a savage with all 110 horses :roll: the stock B-21f makes) about the arms get stretched....... The issue in this car is slowly getting worse.

I will have the arms out and measure...... They will likely get shortened with the sawzall and reassembled with an arrangement to make them adjustable.

I've encountered this issue in other '79-'81 or so two door cars...... Seemingly all DL flavor. Hows about the rest of you? Seems hard to believe that there would be anything different in the body for DL vs GL or GLE but I've never driven a GLE with a driveshaft shake that was not a dead U-Joint, rear susp bushing or trans mount.

Thanks James!
 
I drive a 79 244DL / AW55 that is good and loud at 70mph, but not from the driveline. It has what look like 1/4" shims under the tranny crossmember. Something in my recollection said that corrected u-joint angle.
 
Clay said:
Are you POSITIVE it's not the driveshaft center support bearing?
Click to expand...

Very much so.

I've done everything about the driveshaft; including replacing it with the 'three large U-Joints' shaft. DL driveline rumble remains. I will next give it adjustable arms and get them right.

Edit: it got the 'large' driveshaft along with the M-46 box. This car is an '80 DL that came with an M-45. :nod: Only option Mom got with it was A/C. I replaced the York A/C compressor years ago and gave it power steering using the late model pump and A/C compressor. Good stuff. Done with a new steering rack....... No babysitting or leaks ten years later.
 
cleanflametrap said:
I drive a 79 244DL / AW55 that is good and loud at 70mph, but not from the driveline. It has what look like 1/4" shims under the tranny crossmember. Something in my recollection said that corrected u-joint angle.
Click to expand...

Seems like that is an automagic thing....... No?

The front end of the driveshaft is in more or less a straight line with the center bearing.
 
AW cars got the alum spacers. I think because they used the same x-member as a manual car up to 1986 model year, but they couldn't get the mount set up how they wanted with that x-member without the alum spacers...cheaper to make a pile of spacers than another x-member.

Manual cars just get the x-member bolted to the body.

Seems like a DL or batch of wrong length upper arms thing. Rubber bushings are nice on a daily driver to keep it pretty quiet and stodgy. I've encountered a few other 80ish stripper 242DLs that did what mine and yours do. Reliably slow and not exciting is not a bad thing sometimes to a putz around town car.
 
945ti said:
...cheaper to make a pile of spacers than another x-member.
Click to expand...

That thought makes more sense to me than the retrofit explanation I somehow have stuck in my memory from reading the boards. I truly didn't give it much thought beyond noting how some owners warned a silly 1/4" would make the difference between smooth and rumbly. I would later remember that when reassembling the crossmember.

Seems like that is an automagic thing....... No?
Click to expand...

But yes, I failed to note this thread was about a manual car.
 
JohnLane said:
Seems like that is an automagic thing....... No?

The front end of the driveshaft is in more or less a straight line with the center bearing.
Click to expand...

Please do this: when car is on the ground look at the rear U-joint next to the diff an see how it stands, is it centered well to the diff, if not then is the rear torque arms to fault for sure.
You should be able to see if the drive shaft stands under angle to the diff on the rear U-joint, just stick your finger in the U-joint and check the space above and below.
Let me know if you don't understand the word I'm saying:oops:
 
Drop the xmember with some spacers and it will raise the mid u-joint, get the joints back in phase and solve your problem. This is just like the 7/9 TSB about shimming the center support up or down. It's amazing what 1/4" can do.
 
scotti said:
Drop the xmember with some spacers and it will raise the mid u-joint, get the joints back in phase and solve your problem. This is just like the 7/9 TSB about shimming the center support up or down. It's amazing what 1/4" can do.
Click to expand...

I would check the pinion angle before doing that....

Pinion angle wants to be aimed about 3degrees "down" from vertical.

If it's not, you remove the bolts that hold the torque rods to the diff, then pull the pinion downwards until the angle is right.

With the rods still in the diff (just misaligned now) mark with a paint marker there the bolt "should" go through.

Pull the torque rods, measure the difference beween the centerline of where the bolt goes through and where the paint mark is. Shorten the torque rods be that amount. Reinstall.


Center support bearing height should only be changed if the pinion angle is correct.
 
Guys I have pulled the adjustable torque rods out of the rallycar and done some measuring....... I am now aware that the (big) Heim joints that get blasted with rocks are dead. :roll:

I have installed them in the DL car 1/8" shorter then standard....... Can't tell if it changed anything.
1/8" longer then standard....... Same to louder.

Kenny thank you for speaking up on this one. I want to use the car and the driveshaft vibrations make me nuts; having driven Nazi cars that are smooth and quiet at 160. Kenny how do you suggest measuring driveshaft angle?
 
I use the magnetic angle finder thingie on the pinion flange, like this:

hf34214.jpg


Car needs to be parked on a reasonably flat surface of course. :)

as long as the flange sits below vertical really you're good - 3-5 degrees ideally.
if you have a lon piece of angle iron you can lay it down beside the car, and put the angle finder on the angle iron to get a rough idea of the "grade" of the shop floor. Knowing you I bet your's is pretty flat with the exception of a bit of slope for drainage. Checking on the floor w/ the angle iron allows you to compensate. My garage is about 2 degrees slope towards the bay door so if I drive the car in frontways the car is already tilted "up" 2 degrees, so I am looks for more like 1-3 degrees of pinion angle.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top