Drive shafts & U Joints..help

[juniort444e]

Ok, my truck eats u joints alot. I have traction bars on too.

I am looking into either buying an aftermarket drive shaft with stonger u joints, or just buying better u joints.

Who has what on theirs and do you like it.

For some reason i think my drive shaft might not be balanced to well. So replacing it with something stronger would be great. If not what u joints should i buy from where that are stronger.

 

[Hotrodtractor]

If your eating u-joints either you are not maintaining them, you have an imbalanced drive shaft, or bad joint angles.

I always go for the 1480 joints and 4" 0.093" wall drive shafts.

 

[wetnsloppy4x]

:whs:
If you're eating up u-joints something is wrong or you're using poor quality joints during replacement.

For reference, I went 100k miles on my stockers with 37"s and 6" of lift. The only reason I replaced them was I sheared the pinion on the rear diff and spit out the back half of my driveshaft so all new solid Spicer 1410s went in with the rebalance of the whole assembly.

 

[TyCorr]

:whs:
If you're eating up u-joints something is wrong or you're using poor quality joints during replacement.

For reference, I went 100k miles on my stockers with 37"s and 6" of lift. The only reason I replaced them was I sheared the pinion on the rear diff and spit out the back half of my driveshaft so all new solid Spicer 1410s went in with the rebalance of the whole assembly.

I took my stockers.out.last fall at 250k because I thouht they had to be bad. :doh: bad idea. Thank god the guy who ended up finishing the project was smarter than I. I bought some Neapco golds that are "as good as" the spicers. NOT! My caps were so friggin rusted that he ended up torching the trunions out and then getting the caps out. I beat on them ***kers for a week. Went through three map canisters for my torch trying to loosen em. Finally took it in and he finished er up. If I had to do again, id replace em every 100k so they arent rusted solid and Id have just taken it to a driveline shop. If you've already taken it apart Jr then it should come apart easy enough to put 1410s in yourself. Then, since you already suspect premature wearing, get it balanced too. Worth every penny. Id like to get a one piece shaff built for mine.

 

[wetnsloppy4x]

Also replace the carrier bearing while you're in there.

Another thing to consider, if you pull the back half of the shaft from the front half without marking thier alignment to each other, chances are you will put it back together out of phase. With a two piece shaft this is a very important point many people don't realize. As I found out, the factory doesn't make any phasing marks.

 

[juniort444e]

Thanks guys.

I have a one piece since my truck is a ex cab short bed. The angle used to be worse, because the idiot who had my truck before i bought it had the lift blocks installed reverse, i flipped them after the second u joint got eatn last year. Put trac bars on and it helped a ton, but seems like after a few months, roughly half a year or better, i get that wobble and just gets worse and worse.

I have been buying my u joints from the local parts stores. I dont think i will keep going that route, seems theirs are junk anyway.

And i made the mistake of not marking the driveshaft when i messed around with it before, but the shop that put my japser trans in didnt either, and the drive shaft has been off a dozen times or more.

Im going to stop by a drive shaft place haddox told me about that is close to my school and see what they have and say.

 

[wetnsloppy4x]

Since you have a one piece shaft, you can forget everything I said about phasing.

You might throw a one piece shaft slightly out of balance by not clocking the yoke where it was but I've never personally seen this be a big issue. Certainly not to the point of having to replace u-joint every 6 months.

 

[Jeremysmith9902]

Ok so I have an 03 4x4 w/ 8in lift on 37's and just changed the carrier bearing and now noticing a lot more vibration... What is the correct drop for my lift and rear axle angle? Also running ladder bars as well as top traction control bars.. any ideas?

 

[Zmann]

Spicer PDF

Have at it and check out how angles effect u-joint life

http://65.170.161.218/~spicerpa/sites/default/files/pdf/driveshaft_installation.pdf

 

[Jeremysmith9902]

Ok thanks, will do

 

[Jeremysmith9902]

Well made a discovery today.. pinion bearing is bad as well as my axle seals.. so yanking it all out and doin a complete overhaul one night this week.. thank god for the ole faithful 1st gen 12v Cummins that's been neglected so.ce this truck was bought 6months ago.. lol