I went to replace the u-joints in the rear driveshaft over the weekend. I found some pretty disturbing stuff.
First off, the yoke on the rear diff had washers and spaces welded (very poorly) to the sides to capture the u-joint in the center of the straps. It appeared that on the one side, it used to have something welded on, but broke off. What can be done/bought to make sure the u-joint stays perfectly centered on that rear yoke? I should have snapped some photos of this.
Second thing... The ears of the yokes welded onto the driveshaft were completely smashed over. It looks like someone tried to just beat the u-joints out/in and missed a bunch of times and deformed those ears.
I ended up having to cut the u-joints out with a cut off wheel. Then i had to take it to the mill and setup my boring head and re-bore the top part of the bore. I just want far enough to clean up the hole to the clip groove. The area that was mashed also mashed into the clip groove as well, so i had to use boring head with an internal grooving tool to make a new groove.
Its all back together now! Just figured I would show one way something like this can be repaired.
Here are some pictures from the project. You cant really see the smashed ears in these pictures, but they were bad.
AJ
First off, the yoke on the rear diff had washers and spaces welded (very poorly) to the sides to capture the u-joint in the center of the straps. It appeared that on the one side, it used to have something welded on, but broke off. What can be done/bought to make sure the u-joint stays perfectly centered on that rear yoke? I should have snapped some photos of this.
Second thing... The ears of the yokes welded onto the driveshaft were completely smashed over. It looks like someone tried to just beat the u-joints out/in and missed a bunch of times and deformed those ears.
I ended up having to cut the u-joints out with a cut off wheel. Then i had to take it to the mill and setup my boring head and re-bore the top part of the bore. I just want far enough to clean up the hole to the clip groove. The area that was mashed also mashed into the clip groove as well, so i had to use boring head with an internal grooving tool to make a new groove.
Its all back together now! Just figured I would show one way something like this can be repaired.
Here are some pictures from the project. You cant really see the smashed ears in these pictures, but they were bad.
AJ