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 Well here we are again another installment of 4x4Projects routine maintainance articles. This article will focus primarily on the driveshaft(s) of your truck. The importantance of the driveshaft(s), for those of you that might not know, is to transmit power from the transmission to the rear wheels. If you suspect your driveshaft of having any problems you should probably crawl under there and check things out. When a u-joint goes bad you'll notice a harsh vibration on acceleration and a steady vibration at cruising speed. When you crawl under your truck you might not notice it at first, you might have to remove the driveshaft to find the problem. So now that you know some of the tell-tale signs of a u-joint going bad you might be thinking "how do I replace the thing". Well read on to see how.

 So as I stated above, I started to notice a little vibration as I was driving down the road this past month. I parked my truck and throw the gear selector into Neutral. I set the parking brake and crawled under the truck and tried to twist the driveshaft. There was a little play at the transmission side of things. Then that's when I saw the problem a u-joint (universal joint) decided it was hungry and ate some bearings in the u-joint cap. So I gathered up all the tools I would need and started to replace the u-joint. Lets go over some tools you might need.

 So now that we have our tools we're ready to begin. Small saftey precaution, set the E-brake and place chocks behind the rear wheels. If you have a stock truck you may have to use a jack or car ramps to access the driveshaft(s). Follow all saftey precautions and directions when using automotive equipment.

 Well, now lets get into this and get it over with, so we can hit the trails again. After you have arranged it so you can access your driveshaft(s). Secured the vehicle so it will not roll over you. We can start to mark the driveshaft(s) for its location. This is a very important step to insure proper alignment of the driveshaft(s) once everything is done. So grab your marking compound or marker, and mark an area you can see very well. For this I marked the u-joint and the yoke. Good practice would be to mark the actual driveshaft and yoke. This is just in case you remove the u-joint, so you wont lose your mark. Put the mark on only one side.

 Next mark the transmissison side. You want to mark both sides just in case something rotates as you remove it. As you can see by the pictures to the right and below, I marked an area that was on the driveshaft and either the yoke or the flange.

 So now that we have the location marked we're ready to remove the driveshaft(s). As a note I recommend you repair one driveshaft, at a time. If you try to repair two you could put the wrong driveshaft in the wrong place. The rear driveshaft is desgined for the rear of the vehcile and front is designed for the front.

 So lets get back to the repair. As I said before we marked our locations and now are ready to remove the driveshaft. First take off the bolts that secure the rear straps to the axle yoke. Followed by the nuts that secure the shaft to the flange. Your truck might have two yokes, one on the axle and one on the output shaft of the transfercase. Mine has the flange yoke combo. See pictures below for nut and bolt removal.

 You might have to kind of pry the rear u-joint out of one of it's yokes. Once the u-joint is free you can go a head and remove it out from under the vehicle. Now take the driveshaft over to your work bench, so you can start to remove the u-joints.

 When you get over to your work bench place the driveshaft in a place where it can be stable. Now grab your pliers and start to remove the four clips that are holding the u-joint in place. See picture below:

 As you can see by the picture you want to grab the clip by the metal tangs and squeeze the tangs together. The clip sits in a little grove about an 1/8 inch below the surface. It might be a little pain at first but just turn your wrist and the clip should come right out. See picture below:

 Once you have removed all four clips you're ready to remove the u-joint. Now you will have to grab a hammer and two sockets. One socket will be used to drive the u-joint free from it's postions the other to support the driveshaft so the other side of the u-joint can proturde out. As a note I have done this repair many times and found that a 10 inch vice does the job much nicer and easier then a hammer. For the vice you still need the use of the two sockets. Also another note, I find that a 3/4" and a 15/16" socket work just fine. So now that you have grabbed your sockets place the 3/4" socket on top of the u-joint cap start to hammer. See picture below for location of socket. The square indicates the location of where you want to place the sockets. One socket on top and one directly opposite of that.

 Once you have moved the u-joint enough, you can take off the bearing cap that is protruding out the otherside. Then the other on the opposite side. Doing this, I have found it to be much easier to remove the u-joint.

 Also as a note the picture below shows the damaged bearing cap and after having to replace many u-joints. I have started to notice a pattern. If you look at the picture you'll start to see a red rust color on the yoke. The red is rust but not surface rust on the yoke, it is from the destoried bearings. That rust is bearing dust. Look very carefully at the picture below:

 Thought that was just a little interesting thing I noticed.

 Once you have everything out and replaced the installation is pretty much opposite. The new u-joint will have to be pressed into place. Once in place replace the clips, the u-joint should come with four new clips. Make sure the clips are in the groove.

 As a little saftey and insurance, or assurance, I like to grease all the new u-joints up before I put the drive shaft back in. Sometimes it's little difficult to reach the zurc, when the driveshaft is installed. Make sure when you place the shaft back in, that the marks you made before you removed the shaft line up. If these lines don't lineup you will feel a funny vibration. Not a big deal it just means your shaft is out by 180 degrees.

 So now that you have everything installed and made sure everything is tightened up. You're ready to hit the trail again. Thanks for reading and as always check back again for the next article.

{pgomakase}

(Disclaimer: 4x4Projects.com is not responsibe for any damages done your vehicle. You work on your vehicle at your own risk. This article is intend to be an overview and is in no way a good substitute for a repair manual.)