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Hey whats up guys nice to meet everyone! I've owned my 96 LS for just shy of 2 years and its like for real been the love of my life as far as my ownership in cars go lol buuuuut lately I've been having a lot of trouble with my drive shaft flex joints/couplers and it's been the biggest pain in the *** that the Ls has dished out so far.
For those that don't know they look like a giant busching and go on the drive shaft of your LS and are located where the cv joints would be on most other cars. The placing goes as follows - trans, flexjoint, drive shaft, flex joint differential
First I got ebay parts that were like 2 for 60 bucks needless to say they busted like 2months after the install. I like to hotrod (responsibly in parking lots, country roads / when the highways are clear) every so often just to blow off steam because I don't like to relive stress by drinking or bothering with drugs. Would any of you fellow Ls brothers happen to know when I'd be able to purchase a decent pair of flex joints for without breakin the bank. Lexus in LA $295, local Orileys $335, local Autozone $395 for just one of these things. Recently got a stroke of luck a junk yard I used to work at and pulled the one that's connected to the trans (ended up puttin some cracks in it though) but was only charged $10 cause the guy had never seen a flex joint be fore and didn't know what it was. My Ls runs fine for now with the daily stop n go, and does fine on the freeway. But I'm sure that the part I have isn't going to last much longer. Any info would be greatly appreciated. Thanks Guys!
As I have mentioned in many posts about hot rodding a car that was designed to accelerate smoothly and be driven like you have old grand parents in it all the time. The rubber parts are designed to absorb normal easy driving shocks and harmonics. Those rubber joints will not take the stress of drag racing or any sort of rapid acceleration. Yeah maybe 2 times a year and that is pushing it. So if you want to drive it like its not meant to be driven then you will need to re engineer some of the parts and like anything in engineering there will be trade offs. Do you want smooth old timer ride? Or do you want race car ride? An option that maybe much less costly than purchasing 2 of those donuts, is to have a drive line shop set up a drive line with normal u joints or cv's.
The car will not feel the same or sound the same with the mods. I say the best option is drive the LS nice, and get something else for the racing and performance stuff.
I think you should go buy a cheap 240sx if you want to do donuts, drift and be a hoonigan in. These cars were meant to be luxury cruisers and awesome daily drivers. Anytime you change the main purpose of a car, ****'s gonna break.
What are the simptoms of a bad/worn flex coupler?
Is it easy to visually determine if it's bad?
Does the front last longer or about same as rear and they usually get repalced in pairs?
Never seen these things before until I threw my old LS on the lift for the 1st time. IMO with your driving style and apparent issues with them you should get some aluminum ones made and forget about it once and for all.
Never seen these things before until I threw my old LS on the lift for the 1st time. IMO with your driving style and apparent issues with them you should get some aluminum ones made and forget about it once and for all.
i was going to suggest aluminum too, but that would have to be custom made.
They are also known as Guibo bushings and are very common in RWD european cars.
Replacing them with aluminum for a daily driven car is not recommended as they take up a LOT of drivetrain shock. The NVH would go up substantially and there would be more wear and tear on the differential bushings, rear subframe bushings, and engine/trans mounts.
They are also known as Guibo bushings and are very common in RWD european cars.
Replacing them with aluminum for a daily driven car is not recommended as they take up a LOT of drivetrain shock. The NVH would go up substantially and there would be more wear and tear on the differential bushings, rear subframe bushings, and engine/trans mounts.
I know it reduces NVH. But why do other companies go without them? None of my infiniti's (from a G coupe to a QX SUV) have them and there's no noticeable NVH. Does lexus use a particularly noisy drivetrain that requires more damping?
350z driveshafts are carbon-steel composite, the carbon portion assists in absorbing driveshaft shock.
the trucks i guarantee you have either beefy diff bushings/similar driveshafts OR (more likely) do just have a much less refined drivetrain than the LS.
the LS drivetrain was from day 1 meant to be double-cream smooth. The Z/G were not (being enthusiast cars).
i had to look up NVH, totally understand why lexus put that guibo bushing there. if you look there are dampers everywhere, even the exhaust hangers have dampers!
what about a bushing made out of harder material than rubber but softer than straight billet alum, such as delrin or polyurethane?
It is a flex joint! It is constantly flexing as the drive shaft turns, there is always miss alignment from the transmission to the rear end, and on cars and trucks were the rear end is bouncing up and down they really get a work out. Less so on an LS because the rear end is fixed and doesn't move with the road. But still there is an out of align condition due to the body flex, the rubber engine and transmission mounts and the rear end is also rubber mounted and even the drive shaft and the flanges are not perfect, so it can not be a solid deal to replace them, because any sort of misalign or shaft wobble would then be put on something else.
10-27-15, 01:30 AM
Drive shaft Flexjoint/Couplers problems
