"noise" when accelerating from dead stop.

[racsan]

wonder if its dry driveshaft slip splines? only happens when leaving a dead stop under hard acceleration. hard to describe sound, but seems to be coming from behind me, almost sounds like 2 broken pieces of steel snapping past each other. frame is o.k., leaf springs are o.k. , doesnt do it when shifting between gears or if i gently take off from a stop. i dont think theres a grease fitting for the driveshaft where the splines are (where the 2 piece shaft takes up slack for being loaded or unloaded) amy have to take that apart once the weather breaks and see what i find. my 1st ranger never had this issue after 200K miles. this truck is now at 145K but its almost 20 years old. ive read somewhere before about pulling the shaft apart & greasing the splines up. does this sound like a possibility for whats happening? not sure what else it could be.

 

[Brandon Nootenboom]

My 97 does pretty much the same thing with just a tad vibration at a certain range of speed. I went under my truck and really wrenched on the slip is in my driveline and it had just a little bit of twisting slop in it. I'd go under with a good pair of gloves and give the two sides a twist and see if you hear any noise from them clanking together. I haven't greased mine yet but I'm gonna try it, worth a shot!

 

[4.0B2]

new ujoints wouldn't be a bad idea...