How to measure Driveshaft Runout

[@arjunsr3379]

All of your videos are top-notch :)

[@WeberAuto]

Thank you!

[@spelunkerd]

By the way, there's a reason focus is difficult when you zoom in. With all zoom lenses, minimum subject distance increases when you zoom, so for best results you want to mount the camera as close as possible to the subject to allow you to use as wide an angle as possible. At the widest zoom, you can usually focus the camera to within about a foot of the subject. Of course safety and practical issues may make that impossible, in which case you need to use more targeted light, post exposure cropping, a macro lens, or a close focus diopter (sorry for the nerdy bits, I was a photographer in another life).

[@Subarubruce]

If you are building a driveshaft in a lathe without a balance machine i would agree that this is the correct way to check it. However, factory shafts are built and balanced. Those numbers are irrelevant when balanced correctly. You could have .050" runout and still balance it out. Personally i don't even balance my shafts until i get them to less than .005" using heat shrinking. But the average factory shaft has more than .035" run-out at one or more welds. The Dodge shafts are almost always over .05" Dorman shafts are even worse. Again, if you're building a shaft without balancing this would be correct info but all factory shafts are balanced. May not be balanced correctly, but they are balanced and this method would only be applicable in a very small number of factory shafts.

[@spelunkerd]

It's great to see work done on the car. I would love to see you do differential backlash and pinion bearing/seal installation done on the car as well.

[@shannonsisk]

Really awesome audio work 👍

[@virobeast3836]

You need to do the test with the suspension loaded to bring the pinion into operating angle, the ujoints being out of angle can cause what looks like out of round.

[@chrisjohnson5790]

Please explain what you mean about the suspension being loaded. I’m planning out some thing for my car.

[@JrodGtar]

@@chrisjohnson5790 suspension needs to be "at road hight", otherwise the angles on the joints are exaggerated, giving false runout.

[@Subarubruce]

This is correct. Allowing the suspension to hang and rotating the shaft puts the joint in a bind.

[@bigstuff52]

Great video---would you say no more than .025 for max driveshaft run-out as a starting point. Service manuals can be so lame now a days with a lot or most space taken up with driveability problems.Thanks for these videos and I'm going to get your NVH app. Its on my next tool to purchase list. Have been looking through E-Bay at EVA2 and your app is much more cost effective. Are you guys thinking about or is it possible to modify this app to do drive shaft balancing? Thanks again for these outstanding videos...your students are lucky to have you teachers at WSU...

[@WeberAuto]

Hi, Yes, .025" is a good starting point for driveshaft runout; the lower, the better. Yes, we are looking into a way to perform driveshaft balancing with the NVH app as well as many other cool features. That is the cool thing about an app, you can always make improvements and add new features. Thanks for your kind words, I love teaching!

[@dangerdavefreestyle]

There is another way to do it. Place vehicle in neutral. Chock front wheels, Jack up one tire, spin it with your foot, while observing an apparatus.....a jack with a ruler clamped to it. raise the apparatus up to where it is just barely touching the driveshaft. as you rotate the wheeel with your foot you can observe as it comes around and gently goes sccccrrrrape, and then with a half rotation you will see a gap if it has runout, measure the gap with a feeler gauge. it is very accurate.........a dial indicator is just a tool which is attached to a fixed point with an spring loaded armature that gets pushed and the deflection is shown on a needle gauge.

[@Subarubruce]

🤦🤦🤦💩💩💩

[@sam111880]

This is important for me to get down accurate readings with this type of tool because it also applies to many different application such as ring gear run out , pinion shaft companion shaft run out ,...etc So i want to beable to read this dial gauge tool correctly as well as the bore gauge one. If one could make a video on just using the bore and dial gauge tools that would be great

[@sam111880]

nice video but i have issue with reading the dial gauge and getting the same differences in needle deflections i get more 30 for max not 25 for max run out in one of your cases. It some times goes below zero so i am just taking max difference in needle high - low positions though i am still a little off from what you get for measurements

[@WeberAuto]

Thank you! Sometimes the angle at which you view the dial indicator can make a difference in the interpretation of the runout. It is always good to repeat the measurement a few times and be consistent in angle you are viewing the gauge. I could have been wrong in my interpretation of the live readings. Thanks for your feedback.

[@TheDreamlessVoid]

On a Tundra the steel shaft by Toyota specs should be .024in throughout the steel shaft and the aluminum is allowed around .040in or .045in

[@billyjoejimbob56]

Forty five years ago I acquired my parents' well used '72 Chrysler with what felt like a driveshaft vibration. A new U-joint did not solve the problem. I found a guy doing driveshaft repairs out of a barn behind his house. I pulled the driveshaft out, he chucked it in his lathe and we could easily see at least 1/8 " of runout of the tube at the rear U-joint flange. Had been that way since the car was built. Took him barely ten minutes to cut the original weld, center the tube, reweld it, install a better quality replacement joint, and I put the shaft back in the car. It was quieter and felt smoother than the day my dad bought the car! Wasn't rocket science... just decent craftmenship that was missing at the factory.

[@geojor]

thanks for the video...

[@dangerdavefreestyle]

I just got a brand new driveshaft and it has 18 thou at the middle, 14 on the end, and hardly any upfront. one piece aluminum

[@sam111880]

basically without the ability to accurately read these tools i am not going to be-able to measure any types of runouts ( on rotors , driveshafts, connecting rods, ...anything so its important to get this down)

[@WeberAuto]

I have a whole series of videos on precision measurements. They may be helpful. See kzbin.info/aero/PLIn3FrDiB1lyTyaNChSb5v9vI4PUyBNt0