U-joints

[comanche tom]

Anybody replace thier u-joints lately? I just replaced mine with some basic ones from auto zone and I'm hoping it wasnt a mistake. They are verry tight, it would almost appear that they are too long. I'm wondering if they will just break in and be fine or if I'll have to take them out and put in genuine spicer ones. I havent driven it yet because I was replacing them while I swaped my friends peugeot tranny in, and its not all ready to go yet(plus now i need to replace the rear main seal). Yes, I swapped a peugeot tranny in. My AX-15 had like major problems, the peugeot is just temporary. So if anybody has run into this problem I could use the info before I drive it. thanks.

[Oizarod115]

were they precision?

 

the ones i bought were from oreilly, and the box was yellow

 

the side we got in right was TIGHT as hell, no amount of ear-tapping helped a bit. it had hardly loosened up with alot of moving, then while installing the other side the cap blew apart :headpop:

 

so idk, but I'm getting a spicer replacement for the one that died.

[comanche tom]

No, the ones i got were some other crappy thing. Maybe ear tapping is the term for it, but I just heard if you hit like the area around the joint it will center itself and your good to go. I'm gonna give that a shot tomorrow.

[87manche]

are you saying that it was very tight to get the caps into the ears, or that the joints feel very tight when you try and move them by hand?

the caps should go in tight, any slop and the ears would wallow out and the axle shaft would destroy itself.

Tight when moving them by hand is subjective.

To put in persepctive:

I had to put my caps in with a hammer, I put one clip on, then used the hammer again to center the joint so I could put the other clip on. Once in, they were not easy to turn by hand, but they should move smoothly. If they don't you likely lost a needle bearing while putting them in.

[comanche tom]

no, it was just really tuff to turn by hand. But hitting the ears with a hammer seated the joints up real nice.

[87manche]

I say run it, tight is a hard thing to describe over the internet.

As long as the joints were smooth throughout the whole range of motion I don't think you'll have a problem.

[Duner]

Replaced the front u-joint on the rear driveshaft about 2 months ago with a precision from oreilly and really fought to get the spring clip to seat. The joint was tight to move afterwards, now two thousand miles later it is begining to fail. I will put a spicer in it over the next week to eliminate this problem. It just seems like the precision part is slightly out of tolerance and its early failure would agree with this ( and before everybody chimes in we took the joint apart to check for needle bearings out of place) it just seems a bit oversize I'm going to check it against the spicer when I take it apart.

[Oizarod115]

Replaced the front u-joint on the rear driveshaft about 2 months ago with a precision from oreilly and really fought to get the spring clip to seat. The joint was tight to move afterwards, now two thousand miles later it is begining to fail. I will put a spicer in it over the next week to eliminate this problem. It just seems like the precision part is slightly out of tolerance and its early failure would agree with this ( and before everybody chimes in we took the joint apart to check for needle bearings out of place) it just seems a bit oversize I'm going to check it against the spicer when I take it apart.

 

now that sounds exactly like what happened when we attempted to put our new precision in. i hope the side that we actually got in doesn't fail in 2k miles though :headpop: