[Mike001]

My u joints on my CV drive shaft have busted 5 times now and the machine shop that is rebuilding says the drive shaft is straight my pinion angle is good to. Nobody seems to know why this is happening. If I take it off the road the all 3 u-joints break. I stopped getting on the gas off road and started being easier on it but still they break. Does anyone have any ideas on what could be causing this? Could my Drive shaft be to long and bottom out? I would assume if that was the case it would mess up the t-case I'm at a loss as to what it could be.

 

[AzTJ]

cheap u-joints... after they are intsalled, do they grease them up? Could be overheating without any grease.

 

[4Jeepn]

who is the maker of the driveshaft?

 

[Mike001]

Tom Woods and yes the U-Joints are greased then I grease them a little more just to be sure. They are sealed joints being put on and I keep the greased after offroad excursions through any mud or water.

 

[Mudweiser]

What is your setup? as far as gears and tires, and lift? Seems like your transferring too much torque if you are breaking them that easy. Looking into heavy duty joints is an option...but keep one thing in mind. IF something is going to break..you want it to be the ujoints. They are designed to be the weak link. If they were unbreakable....something else would give. Like your wallet.

 

[4Jeepn]

Are you sure the pinion angle is correct? What lift do you have? Perhaps try a different shop?

 

[Mike001]

My wallet already gave and my wife is starting to get pissed off in a real bad way. I have a RE 4.5 in SF and 3.07 gears, and a six speed manual, 33x12.50 BFG MT's. The u-joints are heavy duty. I had a Tom Woods Gold seal and they broke then they got replaces with some beefier ones.

 

[Mike001]

The pinion was checked by West Texas offroad and was good I checked and it was good.

 

[1BLKJP]

Mike, how long is your driveshaft and do you have an angle finder that you could put on it to see what kind of an angle it's sitting at?

 

[4Jeepn]

hm.. to bust all of them something is majorly wrong. Is there enough clearance when it flex's that the u-joints are not hitting anything or the CV it self, check for wear marks. Or perhaps there is an interanl issue with the t-case or the diff binding up?

 

[Mike001]

There are no wear marks and its not hitting anywear the drive shaft is 2 degrees less than the the rear diff. What do you buy binding in the t-case or gears?

 

[4Jeepn]

Just mean is the r/p turing okay.. no teeth busted etc.. that would make it say lock up, skip etc.., same with the t-case.

 

[1BLKJP]

There are no wear marks and its not hitting anywear the drive shaft is 2 degrees less than the the rear diff. What do you buy binding in the t-case or gears?

I'm just questioning if your shaft is at too great of an angle for the joints. If you shaft is running at say 25 degrees then that's too much. The TJ shafts are short to start with and then we put them at pretty steep angles when we lift them.

 

[ccain]

hm.. to bust all of them something is majorly wrong. Is there enough clearance when it flex's that the u-joints are not hitting anything or the CV it self, check for wear marks. Or perhaps there is an interanl issue with the t-case or the diff binding up?

Thats what I was thinking....t-case or pinion wear....something is binding!

 

[affende]

is your rear pinion pointing directly at your tcase output?

 

[Mike001]

It looks like it is almost pointing I believe the DS angle wsa 20 degrees. I found a tooth off of the spider gear when I changed the fluid. I guess that just happend I don't know cause there's been no binding or skipping.

 

[Moab Man]

That tooth could have been and may still be the problem. First you need to get that fixed and thoroughly inspect the rest.

You pinion should be pointed straight at your t-case.

If you continue to have problems feel free to drop me a message. Tom Woods is one of our sponsors and I would be happy to assist you with getting this figured out.

 

[Mike001]

I broke the U-joints 3 times while I know the gears where good I spoke with someone from Tom Woods and I told him what angles I got the where good. The local machine shop here is perplexed they also build custom drive shafts and they cant find anything wrong with the drive shaft he said it was off by 15 thousandths of an inch and that would not cause a problem.

 

[1BLKJP]

Any chance you can snap a couple of pics of it while it's installed in the jeep?

 

[Mike001]

Yes I can this evening, after I get off.