Why you should not ignore your u-joints

[Paraphoe]

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.

 

[section525]

Jason. I think you broke a needle bearing or two! Holy! That's probably the worst I've ever seen. Good write-up too.

 

[gmanpaint]

Wowzers!

Good thing you got it done when you did. A drive shaft spinning at high speeds with one end disconnected can do some terrible damage.

I had a shaft come out at high RPM, it shot out sideways and landed 50' away from the vehicle. No Bueno.

 

[Joe Dirt]

Holy SMUT!

You really are lucky it didn't grenade!

I'm changing mine now... For $20 each not a big deal vs. the potential disaster...

 

[Brian1]

You would be supprised how they hold up with no needle bearings. I broke 2 alloy stub shafts in my front 44 at the same time and when I swapped in a new axle I took the u-joint off at the yoke and found neither side had needle bearings left, just a fine powder. I would have thought the ujoint would have let go but it never did.

Nice catch!

 

[Paraphoe]

Jason. I think you broke a needle bearing or two! Holy! That's probably the worst I've ever seen. Good write-up too.

I know, it's actually kinda embarrassing posting with them looking that bad.

I had a shaft come out at high RPM, it shot out sideways and landed 50' away from the vehicle. No Bueno.

WTF? Like an ICBM!

 

[Keno Biebrich]

great pics


grandiosas fotos