U-Joint Cap Spinning In Yoke

[B250]

I came across this problem when I was replacing a bad U-Joint on my drive shaft. It's a one piece, 2WD shaft - straightforward enough - and one of the bearings had 'gone' from inside the cap. I mean totally 'gone' - no trace of any needles at all! These U-Joints were replaced in July last year. I grease them frequently. The last set of U-Joints had the nipples on the caps instead of the cross as it is easier to get to with my grease gun. The cap that failed was the one opposite the nipple and my theory is that this cap gets 'short changed' when the U-Joints are greased (the other three caps get all the grease). The nipple in the cross U-Joints give each cap an equal amount of grease.

Anyway when I came to remove the old U-Joint it pretty much fell out of the yoke! It seems that the mounting holes for the caps are a smidge bigger so the caps aren't gripped tightly.

I've been google-ing to see if there are oversize caps or repair sleeves for this situation. Has anyone else come across this problem and if so how did you fix it?

As I was in middle of nowhere when I found the problem, I put some Loctite red on the cap and waited for it to cure before driving off.

One idea I had was to use a feeler gauge to make a sort of repair sleeve myself. The gap is only a few thousandths of an inch and maybe me cleaning the crud out of the mounting holes didn't help with a good interference fir.

I was hoping NOT to have to buy anither drive shaft!

 

[dusterdude]

Can i guess you are talking about where the strap bolta to the rear end yoke?

 

[B250]

Sorry, no its the joint at the front of the shaft/rear of the transmission. Which makes me wonder if there's any way to cut off the casted mounting and replace it with a strap like you mentioned.

Maybe somewhere could weld or braze the mounting hole and then rebore it to correct size

 

[dusterdude]

You should contact a driveshaft shop if there is one near you or have a machinist put some weld in there and machine it round again

 

[B250]

Yes, dusterdude, I think my next step is to visit a drivetrain shop like you say. It only takes 10 minutes to get the shaft of the vehicle

 

[dusterdude]

Excellent,keep us posted