hey

i know the stock driveshafts are "non rebuildable" but advance auto sells joints to rebuild them

i put new u joints in it and now its worse then when i started, more vibration and they squeak. it wasnt very easy to do so im assuming that i f'd up the u joints when i put them in.

anyone have any tips on how to make this easier? i'm thinking about just ordering a mazdatrix unit anyway

 

pull the driveshaft and feel which joint is binding and disassemble it. a roller bearing may have gotten crunched.

 

im almost certain this is what happened, i also put both of the grease fittings on the same side of the shaft


because of the yoke design on the drive shaft and flanges i wasn't able to get the cap back out once i started pressing it in (with out destroying the cap) so i just rammed them together out of frustration

 

there's not much room to work on these shafts so unfortunately once they are starting to go together you are dedicating yourself to everything going together at that point. still though it may be something simple like grease fitting interfering with the yokes.

 

its a bearing cap fitted grease zerk, so i doubt they are interfering with the yokes

 

i see, well sometimes if they are bound up. setting the yoke on a vice and tapping the driveshaft with a mallet, flip it rinse and repeat will unbind the caps. point is to drive the joint into the caps so that they seat against the yoke versus having some slack and running against the joint itself. some of these replacement joints are too tall, requiring the inside of the shaft to be cut so they aren't preloaded.