My BA MKll Fairlane had this tailshaft vibration and after spending silly amounts of money having the tailshaft balanced 3 times OFF the vehicle I discovered that dealerships do it ON the vehicle. takes little to no time and gets rid of the vibration straight away. I'd recommend having this done by a dealership who's experienced at doing it. Apparently, it's a common thing.

Ordered my weights from Ford today. Been chasing the same issue for 12 months, after full tailshaft rebuild, new tyres, rims restored, new rotors and pads, and gearbox mount. It's alot better than it was but hopefully now I can sort it out once and for all 🤙🏻

If that centre bearing is new check that it's not a repco one...I have had a few new in box that were far too soft allowing the shaft to move around! Great to see you overcoming the vibration issues as that can ruin the driving experience!!

I used to work at ford and do the dynamic tailshaft balancing. It's amazing how only the lightest of weights can make the biggest difference.

Congratulations on the tail shaft fix and thanks for documenting your trials and tribulations along the way. Now the rest of us who enjoy these old vehicles have confidence that we can do it too! I hope that you enjoy your ride to the fullest. 😊

super stoked you got it sorted man. i had been chasing a rattle on my BA for months that turned out to be the inside of the cat converter, took ages to diagnose. so i know the feels of a win like that.

I put on some new shocks this week and flushed the clutch fluid! Cars feels much better! Always nice to do some work and feel the benefits!! Keep the content rolling mate!!

Congrats on solving the problem Sean. Enjoy the car!

Awesome news! Looking forward to see (and hear) you wring it out at a track day.

So glad you managed to sort it - I never fully resolved the buzz in my BA!

Wish I'd known this when I still had my BA XR8 manual, great video Sean.

Good grief, what a saga. You must be so relieved and I hope it is still going well. Happy days 😊👌

so glad to hear you got it fixed man! good shit☝️

Great to see a win mate well done 👍👍

Lovely video Sean!

Really loving the progress Sean! I really wish that there was a place that you could legally test the top speed of the car. But yeah you should do some roll racing for sure, and film how just fast you are going.

Be careful not to diagnose axle issues when the suspension is drooped as the geometry can be weird. Try to get a second set of axle stands and hold the trailing arms close to where they would be on the road. Falcons also have a vibration issue at 80km/h+ caused by the brake booster. There is a small rod inside the booster that you give a quarter turn and can make a huge difference. If you’re changing the front brake rotors then throw in some new wheel bearing. Super easy to change and not too expensive.

Thanks mate, I didn't know you could buy those weights. I've always just sent the shaft away and had it reconditioned and it comes back smooth as silk for around $200.

Glad to see it better!

Glad its sorted Sean, I am sure you are over the moon now. 👍

If your replacing rear brakes you can put territory rear calipers and rotors on and get larger vented rear brakes. Fit straight on

Awesome diagnosis as iv seen those clip on weights get thrown in the bin I do make a point of marking position of the weights and hangar bearing and position of driveshaft whenever I remove the driveshaft from the vehicle making installation easier and accurate

Glad you got it sorted mate.

Nice work!

I feel your pain with this issue. I used hose clamps on my patrol to sort out the same issue. I decided to leave them there and 9 years later they are still there with no problems.

Nice vid mate. Ive had my uni joint and centre bearing done and its not bad, but dont think its as smooth as should be these weights are gunn get a go here.😅😅 cheers

Glad you finally got it sorted mate! Having gone through this twice i know how much it ruins the experience of the car. Fingers crossed i don't end up in round three if i go ahead with the 6 speed swap haha

Great video!

Seeing you rolling onto the highway past goodna maccas takes me back😅 I got my P’s and was living in Bellbird park and would punch onto that highway every single day to work 🙏🏼 was only here to troubleshoot my BA vibrations but you’ve managed to score my further interests 😅

👕Grab a shirt from www.motoringbox.com/shop I've finally had a win! Hopefully we can now move on and start enjoying the car!

That little repco looks like a relic from the past!

Nice, I'm glad you didn't have to keep throwing the parts cannon at it

Great outcome Ssean Well done Nick Australia

Its awesome your finally winning with the ba. Just got my ba back on the road and already done a big roadtrip, but now discovered a bad rear end wobble at 100kph lol.

Good on ya ! Love your channel. I watch in New Zealand because I have a Territory. Not much on KZfaq about Territory's

Driveline vibrations do my head in soo bad. My WM statesman had it so I did the flexible couplings and had the tailshaft redone (new centre bearing etc) and balanced and it was great.. Got 2014 WN Caprice with only 27 thousand kays and it had a slight vibration also.. Got the tailshaft balanced and all good.. Great job Sean and very interesting how Ford made those weights.. Nothing better than a smooth car on the freeway...

The thumbnail is literally my face every time i say "nah it just can't just be this simple fix" and it is haha

Good vibrations!

I used to live in Flinders View, so kinda close to where repco is at. I've replaced the rear shocks and the blade arms as well. I also have a vibration which comes on at 60kph, but I'll try shifting the centre bearing mount side to side first.

Sounds like an easy and cheap way to get rid of vibrations. As per your rear drive shaft, I'd be looking further into getting a new shaft for that side. As you have worked out with your tail shaft vibrations, ANY vibration will end up causing another part to fail or wear our prematurely. Similar to what you found and sorted with your center bearing. Cheers and Thanks for the vid's, they really help sorting our our OWN probs and mechanical work. Teddy.

Glad it was something simple and about that dtive cv shaft thing on rear i havent had issues with my b series but i did with my au Fairlane with irs had to replace them because they did that but got to point it was making noise and that but that car had over 350,000 kms and at time i did alot of burnouts so yeah may not be same case but my opinion is keep an eye on it and possibly get spares or upgrade ones if can glad see ba Getting there

Got my car back after second attempt, its improved alittle bit but the vibration is still there. Looks like I'll need to get it dynamically balanced or try your trick with the weights.

Great work mate had the same problem in my bf and could not find anything about it on KZfaq it think you're vids are going to help someone with the same problem

FG does run the same weights. My oem ones were in a white plastic casing. They’re now redundant. The uni joints in the FG tail shaft are non-replaceable. They’re spiked in place, and the castings have no way to fit a circlip. You can do a dodgy fix, but it would be hard to centre the uni and spike it in place again. So I had a new shaft made, with replaceable units (and CV) and it’s balanced properly (like tailshafts of old were done). It’s as smooth as anything, with no need to run those weights.

I'm a Holden whose going to say this,I ordered a brand new aftermarket tailshaft for my VY SS Commodore about 5 years ago now & in early 2022 I replaced the front doughnut with a $55 AUD doughnut because it was shredded & it gave me a terrible tailshaft vibration. I replaced the centre bearing & even the universal joint which I have recently refitted because the new was eventually shagged,I kept the old one. I also replaced the transmission mount with a manual one after discovering that I fitted an automatic one, they're different in the Chevrolet LS1 V8 powered Commodores to the old Holden 5 litre V8 pre ECOTEC V6 powered Commodores which ran the T5 Borg Warner transmission & the same mount as the automatic transmission. I also replaced the rear doughnut to try & cure some vibration that Imy car was still having,it did have some small splits in it but I kept it as a spare. Last night I decided to jack the rear of the car up & check for runout,thr rear looked good in both first & second gear but the front was throwing a wobbly so I stopped the engine then I checked how much runout it had with a dial gauge. I had 0.4 millimetres of runout so I hoped that the front shaft wasn't bent so I fitted that rear doughnut onto the front of the tailshaft up where the transmission yoke is,I tried replacing the cheapest part first. I ran the engine in first gear with that doughnut fitted & there seemed to be much less of a wobble up on the front section of the tailshaft so I took the car for a test drive early this morning when I found out that vibration in second gear had totally disappeared. So I put it down to a defective doughnut which isn't very old & seems to look alright but it doesn't seem to be quite flat on the bench. I will eventually order a Mackay doughnut which is a more reputable brand than the one which I bought previously,I can buy the Mackay doughnut for $68!AUD online in eBay. As far as your axle shafts go don't worry about them because mine isva bit out of true like that as well !

I already told you it was your axles mate well done for finding it

Great video, glad you've fixed the tailshaft issues but I kind of think that Ford knew about this, but didn't bother fixing it as the BA program was kind of a last minute rush job to fix the AU... You might need to fix the driveshaft in the future because it does look a little wonky as you said... Also, when do you expect the new ride to debut on the channel, super excited!

I’ve just bought a FG ute and came looking on KZfaq for an answer to the odd vibration between 80 and 100. The contact with the road feels smooth so it has made me wonder if I am imagining it. I might get these weights and see if I can have a play. Thanks for the video

Well done 👌

Hey, have you done, or could you do a video on your in car video/audio setup? I like that auto pan thing you have.

FWIW: The yellow dot on the diff flange indicates the light side of the axial balance and that should match up with a yellow dot on the tailshaft flange. The assembly should be match marked before anything is removed to allow it all to be put back together and torqued to 72Nm. The centre bearing sometimes have shims fitted and they should also be marked which side and go back to there original spot and the bolts are torqued 36Nm.

May apply to the Territory too. We had a brand new SZ MkII Territory fleet car a few years ago that had the vibration you've described since day one. Above 90kph it would just sound like you had a window open in the back. The Ford dealer couldn't fix it then ultimately denied anything was wrong with it. Never got worse in the 4 years we had it but couldn't deny that it wasn't smooth. We had an SZ MkI before it and it was fine!

Keen to see your brake upgrade. I have 6 pot front brakes from a Mustang, rotors are 380mm as opposed to the 355mm from a falcon gt. I have also 4 pot rear which are a eBay special, 330mm rotors. It's also been engineered. Love the content, keep it up!

Hey thanks for the video, fortunately I have the original weight but might need to swap it to another location or perhaps is not enough weight. I cannot find these weights anywhere online so I contacted my local dealer and waiting for reply. I also noticed on your coupling there are 2 holes drilled of different depths and is exactly the positions where you added the weights. 5:00

Hi - A Great result for you It was something you said that reminded me of a prior car that i owned with similar issues Basically it was a WB Statesman, it was stock ( but i found out later not so stock ) it had a vibrating ride at all speeds, i done the easiest and swapped the rims with another car but the result was the same So one day i lent it to a friend as the WB had a tow bar, he mentioned the vibration but when towing it was limo smooth Same happened the next time, he picked up the car , it vibrated, then when using the trailer it was fine, then when he unhitched the trailer it was back So, a few weeks later i volunteered for the next run to the markets and bought veges for everyone and we shared it over 4 families,i bought 2 big sacks of potatoes plus other items and the ride was so-so ok i guess Next time i went to bunnings and bought possibly 20 x 20kg white pebbles for the garden - the car drove nice and smooth RESULT So in explaining to my mechanic he had a look around and i left it with him Diagnosis - was the car had a factory type 1 or type 2 country tow package which included +1 or +2 inch rear lift springs - the diff pinion angle was the issue unladen, add weight and the boot comes down, the 4 link suspension then pushed down on the diff nose and make the pinion angle more straight - thus left max tilt on the rear universal Stock rear springs solved it permanently Regards George

Not surprised that sorted the niggle. That's what you do for a wheel balance issue, why should it be different with any other spinning mass? I received the shirt on Thursday. Just WOW. Only thing is I'm worried about reactions out in public as it will advertise I'm a car nut, and a Ford one at that. I've never had such a conspicuous sign of my interest before! What do others make of this? Don't regret getting the shirt at all.

Thats excellant you fixed it with grams. My Ba feels like it needs about a kilo of weight to fix mine.I'll give it a go see what happens.

Good win finally. Should definately come to roll racing and give the car a good kick in the butt. Also guessing 2nd hand FPV brembo brake upgrade.

I recently bought a Corghi tyre balancer and tyre changer. I have two FG G6es and have had several new sets of tyres over the years. I Always had a vibration around the 95km/hr mark even after new high quality tyres on straight rims. Used to think tailshaft needed balancing. Nope, discount tyre shop balancing is hit and miss. Just because it zeros out in one spot does not mean it is balanced. I balance at 4 spots 90 deg apart, note the weight and mark the spots which have variances and stick weight in the middle of the four markings.I also balance brake disc, they are mostly factory balanced and zero out well, some are out by 10g. Next step are new engine mounts and last are tailshaft balance if vibration still exist. Also you need to install tyres with correct soap placement to get them to seat with minimal radial runout which is another vibration, esp cheap tyres. Don't trust shop balancing, I scratch my head on 50% of the tyres I have rebalanced.My cars drive silky smooth now

Holy fuck! I'll be trying this out! Ever since taking the driveshaft apart to change the unibearing (my Uncle and I did it, and he warned me full well that we weren't gonna get it perfect), the car vibrates badly above 60kph, like how air flutters in your ear when you just crack the window as you are going quick on the freeway...been driving me mad!

Nothing like success!!!!~

Thanks for the vid, I'm starting to have this problem when I rev around 3,000 rpm; then it goes away after that.

Great info. I have a vibration strictly between 40-50km after all joints and bearings been replaced. Hopefully this is the fix thanks!

Awesome stuff! I'm keen to give this a go on my own car. Do you have a link for these? I can't seem to find them on eBay

I want an XR6 Turbo!

Gotta love that squeaky clutch pedal. 🤣🤣 My XR8 6 speed manual squeaks all the time. 🤣🤣

Glad I'm not the only one getting this as it really does take away from the enjoyment of the car, had the tailshaft sent away for balancing with not much improvement I guess I'm off to ford to get some weights

had the same issue in mine for years. it also kept breaking the locating pin in the front of the tail shaft. end result. diff cradle out of alighnment due to shitty welding when it was built. was only picked up after an old mate did an alighnment with an old school string line. moden alighnment machines never picked it up. fords have rattled vibrated and clucked since the beggining of time

Mate l told you this two months ago , about the weights at the cv at diff .

I would personally deem that axle runout unacceptable, especially compared to the other side. The only other observation about your issue is if there’s minor vibrations still, a worn transmission mount or diff cradle bushes can throw out the pinion angle enough to get a vibration out at higher speeds. Good to see a big improvement, all the same.

Got a bit emotional at the result that you've fighting to get for so long, got to the point of screaming YES!! while doing the fingers to off In the distance. No I'm not a nut job, I have an XR6 Turbo that has suffered from the dreaded driveshaft vibrations.

Yeah that driveshaft should definitely be straight... some yob probably used it to tie the car down at some point (on a trailer or whatever) and put a bit much pressure on it..

Anyone notice where the weights were added at the rear end there was material removed that matched? Was that how the factory balanced it??

two hose clamps (to balance)and centre uni and bearing ,front spider or dunut fixed mine

Coincidence those weights went exactly where those balancing drill holes were ?

Did this vibration come through the steering wheel? Have a vibration 70-90ks in my BA? Cheers

BARRA POWER SON 👌

a rumbling sound i would check your tyres i was recently working on a FG falcon the owner wanted to replace driveshaft centre bearing etc ,, i kept telling him it is his tyres ... we replaced drive shaft $800 rumbling still there he was adamant that the tyres were high spec .... so eventually i jacked car up spun the wheel and could see a flat spot showed him ,.. next day he changed out tyres for new ones the tyres and PROBLEM SOLVED no more rumbling , he had on obviously had factory defaults ... tyres are one of the most overlooked things even newish tyres develop faults when manufactured even high qaulity brands

When you say it’s from the tail shaft do you feel it in your seat or the steering wheel? But thanks for the great advice!

Crazy question, but I just watched your video from six months ago about your car history, and one of your cars rang a bell. Did you use to own the xfalcon forum?

Finally

So with the reco tailshaft, they don't balance them when they are done ?

Would like to know where you bought the weights tryed ford didn't have them

Hello, really appreciate your content. Any chance you have the part number for these balancing weights? I can't find it anywhere. Thanks!

im a bit late... but i wish i could get my aus dash mat that perfect in place

Gidday mate just realised your in Ipswich I'm at karrabin I'd like to catch up for a chat about my ba falcon please get back to me

I get steering wheel vibration AKA shudder sometimes when going 80kms or over. It only happens occasionally but enough to be annoying. When I hit the brakes a couple of times it goes away. I got know idea what is causing it? I don't know if its the break booster rod that slips from time to time or not? I had the booster rod adjusted once, which seemed to fix it for a while, but it still happens every now and then. Its not a wheel alignment issue or centre bearing issue as I have had the replaced as well. Any ideas on what could be causing the steering wheel shudder?

Jeez...maybe i better not chuck those weights in the bin from now on ...😨

Regarding the weight placement, you obviously tried Spot A, it was worse so you went Opposite Spot A. I wonder if there's any more little refinements to gain by moving it 1 click left or right of that, and really dialling it in, or are you confident you have it as perfect as you can?

What a pain in the @rse...... I've got a BA 5.4L Fairlane.,....... had it 10 years never an issue with vibration.....

👍👍👍👍

Amazingly my fartmounts tailshart is smooth all the way to over 200kmph+ on the dyno. Had another Ford that always wobbled some shafts are just shit

Its time for a burnout ! 😆

still it in to be fix let them worry about it

it'll save your diff not shaking lol

Consider getting your wheel bearings and get your tyres balanced. It might just be the tyres.

At least you will be able to sleep tonight 😁

Replace the drive shaft.

Do a couple of skids it will work itself out 😂😂😂😂

So if you want to buy a Falcon get an AU not a BA?