Platinum_Racing

I was under my truck today replacing some brake line. What I realized was rather odd..... My universal joint on the axle side of the driveshaft has A LOT of slop. The joint seems very sloppy and there's tons of play. It seems as though half the roller bearings inside the sleeve that fits over the joint fell out, because the entire shaft wiggles around. I am sending my front shaft out to be rebuilt and rebalanced, is the rear shaft in need of a rebuild also? I don't want to pay for all the extra stuff if he can just replace the sleeve or the rollers and be done with it. Any opinions?

PapeCAT

Well You can buy brand new spicer u joints and install them yourself. And reinstall driveshaft. the new dana/spicer ujoints are around 25 bucks each new. I would recommend replacing all of them and having the driveline rebalanced while you are at it. mine were like you were describing but started pinging and popping after towing and I threw in some el cheapo kragen parts that were a nice patch but I took it to the spicer driveline shop to get it balanced and I had to put new dana/spicer serviciables in there along with a balancing because it the driveline vibes were huge. The GB brand ujoints that you find at kragen aren't built to near the tolerances that the spicer's are, and are the same price. If you have spicer yokes, use spicer ujoints. It's a no brainer.

Boatnik

If you haven't done u-joints before you might want to pull the drive shaft and take it to a local shop or have someone with experience give you a hand. It is a simple job if you know the little do's and don'ts and have the right tools. Make sure that whoever does the job match marks the yoke assys. so they go back the same way they came off or you may encounter a nasty vibration. This of course is just my 2 cents worth.