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Longevity Of Chinese Made Neapco Brute Force U-Joints?


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The new U-joints for Georgia's D30 front axle arrived today.  I ordered the Brute Force joints as I've had good luck with them in the past.  I was quite dismayed to see that Neapco has now joined the Made in China bandwagon.  Has anyone used the Chinese made version of these U Joints?  Do they hold up?  Due to the PITA factor of pulling the front axle shafts back out I only want to do this one.  I was expecting USA made joints instead of these...

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I tried the Brute Force joints a few years back. They were no stronger than the Duralast Gold ones. After the next wheeling trip (when I broke both of them) I went back to the cold forged Spicer ones.

 

In my experience:

Garbage:

-Duralast

-Duralast Gold

-Neapco

-Neapco Brute Force

-Spicer 5-297x

 

Pretty good:

-Spicer 5-760x

-Alloy USA 11500

 

These are all that I have first hand experience with.

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All is garbage when compared to CTM u-joints.  :bowdown:

 

F4932086.jpg

 I for one am not paying $260 per u joint. The cost of one of them bought my Dana 60, and the cost for a second one put that Dana 60 under my truck with money left to spare.

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you have to have a weak link somewhere or your gonna break alot of shafts. i'd rather break alot of ujoints easier to change than shafts. been there don't wanna spend allday on the trail fixing a damn shaft when i can change a front u joint in around 30mins or so... i had oba @130 psi so i had air tools..

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All is garbage when compared to CTM u-joints.  :bowdown:

 

F4932086.jpg

 I for one am not paying $260 per u joint. The cost of one of them bought my Dana 60, and the cost for a second one put that Dana 60 under my truck with money left to spare.

 

 

$260 **** me! :eek:  I guess i should do my research a little more thoroughly next time, still though you can't deny the BEEF.

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Bought some Ujoints from O'reileys, parts guy said they were "as good as Spicer", didnt last past the first wheeling trip.

FWIW, the failure came from the C clip popping out. I will never use C clips again. When I bought new Spicers I also bought new full circle clips for the caps.

Took a little creative grinding on the stubs and shafts to get cleartance for the clips, never a problem since.

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Another problem with CTM's ... besides the price ... is you need to run them on a vehicle with hublocks. If not they wear out quickfast when spun constantly on the street like most jeeps do.

 

Most typical ujoint failures can be linked to the clips being spit out. Generally first a clip gets spit, a cap walks and an ear stretches and splits or the joint fails. Usually when turned tight. The angle causes the clips to pop when they contact tthe "ear" of the shaft. Converting to full clips will make even a weak joint last longer ... but cheap is still cheap.

Stick to the spicer 760s.

 

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