I've read a few posts, trying to solve my never-ending vibration problems. Then the light bulb lit in my cobweb filled brain.

Since I'm like a lot of you, in that I've removed and installed major components of my Camaro, it also seems like this vibratron issue has come and gone, come and gone.

At one point in my 25 year love affair with my '79 during a particularly vibrating year, someone suggusted to knock the factory weights off the driveshaft. The vibration went away.

I would guess in some year after that I swapped a motor or tranny or something, and it came back.

It's the alignment, isn't it?

All along that's been it, right? Have you ever realized that the answers to life's most perplexing and long running troubles always seem to have the simplest answers, WITH NONE OF THE EXPERTS EVER HAVING THE ANSWER!!

So really, it's all about the drivetrain alignment, isn't it?

I saw this covered very simply in an old British motorsports primer. I guess it was all hushed up after that. Anyone know any specifics of alignment related to 2nd gen. Camaros?

I'm going to check my alignment this weekend, and none of you can stop me. I'll invent a cure for cancer the following week. Keep it simple stupid!

 

I think you're on the right track because here's my supporting experience.

About a year ago I changed both my driveshaft u-joints and transmission mount at the same time. Immediately I got the dreaded driveline vibration at vehicle speeds above 60 MPH, which worsened at higher speeds. After changing the u-joints three(3) separate times with no difference in the vibration problem, I took a good long look at my "old" transmission mount and the "new" one I replaced it with. The "old" mount, due to seven(7+) plus years of deterioration(???), was about 1 inch "flatter" (i.e. thinner), than the "new" mount I replaced it with. I had significantly changed the angle between the transmission tailshaft and driveshaft at the front u-joint by replacing just the tranny mount, and not replacing the motor mounts too. To test this "Theory" I placed three(3) washers, each about 1/8 inch thick, (i.e. 3/8" total), , between the four(4) bolts joining the transmission cross brace to the floorpan, thus effectively lowering the tranny tailshaft where it joins the front u-joint. Immediately about half (50%) of the vibration went away. I did nothing more to the driveline, and after about three/four months of day to day driving I was driving down the expressway at about 70 MPH with the now lessened, but still noticeable , vibration present when I hit a "dip" in the road where the car sank pretty hard and then rebounded back up and.... the driveline vibration was GONE!!! I continued down the highway, still doing about 70 MPH and ALL the while the driveline was totally vibration free, I mean "smooth as silk". After exiting the e-way and coming to a complete stop, the vibration came back! I made about ten trips over that "dip" in the expressway, every time temporarily "curing" my driveshaft vibration problem, until I figured out what was happening.

Your driveshaft, when it's rotating fast, sorta acts like a gyroscope. That is, it maintains its alignment partialy due to the fact that it's rotating. When it is rotating and you "knock/force" it "down" by hitting a big "dip" in the road like I did, the driveshaft will maintain it's "new" alignment only while it's rotating. Hence, it remained "smooth as silk" while at speed, but it returned back to its original misaligned position, (due to the "new" (i.e. "fat") tranny mount, after I came to a complete stop, and of course the driveshaft completely stopped rotating.

As I continue to drive my car and the new tranny mount continues to get more "broken in", the vibration I experience continues to lessen and the "dips" in the road I have to hit to make it go away completely, get smaller.

So, based on my own personal experience with this I totally AGREE with you, it's the alignment of the driveshaft which probably causes the majority of the vibration problems we have with our cars, and not the actual balance of the shaft itself.

Hope this info helps?