[Dusty Rhodes]

I have about 64,000 miles on my jeep. I change the oil at proper intervals, I use a one quart filter. When I back out of my drive I feel a "clunk" transmitted through the steering wheel. Its just barely noticeable.
Its not the ball joints as I checked those really closely. So I look at the axle u-joints and I could see a faint rust line around one of the caps on the cross.

I had them changed and both were bad. The grease was kind of rusty colored in several caps. Clunk is gone.

So today I changed my plugs and I am glad I did. Recommended gap on new plugs is .035" (with the type that have an adjustable gap). The ones I removed measured .055, .060, .065 and three were .070". My coils were working overtime.
So if you are thinking about letting them go until 90,000-100,000 miles don't do it. Change them or at least regap them. But if you are going to pull the coil pack and reinstall them with anti-seize and di-electric grease and torque the plugs and coil bolts, you may as well put in new plugs.

That's my story and I am sticking with it.

 

[Gorving3]

What year is your Wrangler? My 2001 shows about that many miles but has been towed about that many more so maybe I should be looking very closely at my joints. I've replaced the front bearing hubs because I was beginning to hear a very slight noise but nothing yet on any of the U-Joints.

 

[Dusty Rhodes]

Mine is a 2006. 80% pavement city driving. Not much highway miles. I do wheel on forest/logging roads some of which rarely see a jeep. Mainly ATV's so its fairly challenging, narrow and deep ruts.

Stock suspension, lot of armor, MTR's, ZJ tie rod, stuff like that.

Look at the rubber seal under the u-joint cap. Mine had a reddish color apparently seeping out of the cap down onto the cross. I took a long screw driver and pried and could feel/see movement.

I used MOOG brand u-joints. Very reasonable in price from RockAuto and cast into the cross was "Made in USA".

 

[Gorving3]

Thanks Dusty, I'd better be checking mine real close. My Wrangler is strickly stock other than the 10.5/31 tires. Probably 90%+ miles on it have been either highway or city streets, but we have been on a few of the mountain Jeep roads around Ouray, Colorado. Nothing very severe as I've seen too many TV shows of one rolling over into a ravine. I know there was a couple killed several years ago on one of the most severe trails when they pulled over to let another vehicle passed and ended up rolling down the side of the mountain near Telluride, Co. Wife starts screaming and grabbing onto things when the trail gets too rough also.