Drive line vibrations?

EVANDAM1207719

MEMBER
2000 CHEVROLET S-10
4.3L
V6
2WD
MANUAL
234,000 MILES

So, I removed the driveshaft (2 piece) to replace my center support (carrier) bearing. I made a very unintelligent decision and did not mark anything, figuring there would be that extra wide groove on the splines so everything would only go back together one way anyways. Well, that was true for both parts of the drive shaft but not where the drive shafts insert into transmission. So, I winged it, and now I noticed there are slight to moderate vibrations as well as a loss of power (the engines working harder and producing less speed) while driving. The worst being at 30 MPH in 3rd gear as I'm assuming the driveshaft isn't in sync or balance with whatever it needs to be with. My question is, how do I get the shaft to matchup with the transmission correctly again since I was an idiot and did not mark it?

2000 s10 Xtreme 4.3 5speed

1 Reply

KEN L

MASTER CERTIFIED MECHANIC
47,513 POSTS

Yes, the driveline sounds like it is binding the U joints need to be lined up. I would make sure none of the U joints are bad by checking the rotational movement of the cups. Here is how the driveshaft should be installed. Check out the images (below). Let us know what happens and please upload pictures or videos of the problem so we can see what's going on.

Images (Click to make bigger)