- Joined
- July 26, 2004
- Messages
- 4,984
- Reaction score
- 27
- City, State
- Willow Grove, PA
- Year, Model & Trim Level
- '97 XLT
So My truck had a pretty bad squeak that was getting progressively worse. I was told it was a bad u-joint and I finally had the time (and weather) to swing under this Saturday and change them out. I was able to get them changed out in roughly 3 hours, front and rear shafts. Below you will see horrfiying pictures of how NOT to handle u-joint maintence - my rear joint on the rear shaft was such a complete disaster I'm surprised it didn't explode on the highway at some point. I let this go for far too long and I'm lucky it didn't come back to really bite me.
Rear part of the rear shaft, removed:
First sign that something was horribly wrong:
Punched it out, pulled off the first cap, and here's what I found:
...packed with a healthy mix of mud, old grease, and pin bearings that appeared to have been put in an industrial blender.
Took off the OTHER cap, and below is what I found. The cap fully cracked from me slamming it with the BFH, but it was already slightly cracked and in terrible condition.
Replaced the joint:
And replaced the front shaft joint as well:
The moral of the story here is routine maintenence would have prevented the problem from ever getting this bad, but I neglected to check the joint until it started yelling at me (see video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsn8g58Yjqw), which could have been too late. Learn from my mistake and check those joints.
Rear part of the rear shaft, removed:
First sign that something was horribly wrong:
Punched it out, pulled off the first cap, and here's what I found:
...packed with a healthy mix of mud, old grease, and pin bearings that appeared to have been put in an industrial blender.
Took off the OTHER cap, and below is what I found. The cap fully cracked from me slamming it with the BFH, but it was already slightly cracked and in terrible condition.
Replaced the joint:
And replaced the front shaft joint as well:
The moral of the story here is routine maintenence would have prevented the problem from ever getting this bad, but I neglected to check the joint until it started yelling at me (see video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsn8g58Yjqw), which could have been too late. Learn from my mistake and check those joints.
Holy! That's probably the worst I've ever seen. Good write-up too.
