I just got back from 6000miles of driving some of that in Moab some in the Rockies WY, MT, and everywhere in between. Once I returned I kept hearing this plinking tinny sound, like a rock in my e-brake hub, come to find out the universal joints were dry! And the needle bearings were broken in several locations. The truck drove but was starting to let me know it wasn't happy.
Do yourself a favor and grease your driveline now or at least frequently. Don't do what I did. The damage that was done was a long time coming, but I sure didn't help it.
This is just a friendly reminder.
For some tech: pulling your rear drive shaft is super easy.
1-Spray the nuts down with some penetrating oil before you start.
2-jack and support the vehicle with jack stands and chock the front wheels.
3-place the truck in nuetral so you can rotate the drive shaft to access all the bolts
4-Grab a 14mm wrench and socket and remove the 4 rear nuts and bolts on the flange that is part of the yoke. (note: I used an impact very carefully to break my bolts free, getting the socket correctly on the bolt heads is critical if you use an impact or your strip the corners off your bolt heads)
5- now move to the front universal joint yoke and remove the 4 nuts from the studs
6- I used a jack stand to support the drive shaft as I was pulling it out, but if you leave the rear yoke bolts in place the shaft will stay up and out of the way till you pull them.
7-the front yoke flange was a little stuck so I used a soft hammer (a block of wood and a hammer would suffice here) to knock it loose.
8-get your universal joints replace, preferable at a driveline shop where someone with experience can four properly. If you choose to do them yourself, you probably already know how to do this.
9-make sure that when you go to install your drive shaft that your yokes are online with each other, aka your bearing caps are online with each other from front to back, if not, undue strain will be put on your new driveline components.
10- now reinstall the front yoke onto the studs and loosely thread on a nut or two.
11-now drop a couple bolts through the rear yoke flange and mate those two surfaces threading on a couple nuts
12- install all the nuts on the front flange in an alternating pattern like you would lug nuts and the do the same on the rear
13-now torque them all to spec
14-regrease your splines and top off your u-joints just in case
15- put your vehicle in park and pull it off the stands and you are done.
On a side note, the price discrepancy on prices for Toyota u-joints (spyder universal kits) was huge. CDan was the best as usual with $65 at list then all my local parts departments were anywhere from 82-100!!!
Thanks again CDan for the support. If you choose not to go with Toyota, like I did (time constraints) make sure you don't go cheap, ask your supplier or shop where they get them from and let them know you want heavy duty and high quality. Supposedly you can get our u-joints for as cheap as 99 cents!!! Mine where in the $55 dollar range and the install was about 45mins in labor. So $176 out the door was my cost. The shop told me how to do it next time if I needed to do a trail replacement, that I'll leave to someone smarter than myself to explain.
Rant off!
Do yourself a favor and grease your driveline now or at least frequently. Don't do what I did. The damage that was done was a long time coming, but I sure didn't help it.
This is just a friendly reminder.
For some tech: pulling your rear drive shaft is super easy.
1-Spray the nuts down with some penetrating oil before you start.
2-jack and support the vehicle with jack stands and chock the front wheels.
3-place the truck in nuetral so you can rotate the drive shaft to access all the bolts
4-Grab a 14mm wrench and socket and remove the 4 rear nuts and bolts on the flange that is part of the yoke. (note: I used an impact very carefully to break my bolts free, getting the socket correctly on the bolt heads is critical if you use an impact or your strip the corners off your bolt heads)
5- now move to the front universal joint yoke and remove the 4 nuts from the studs
6- I used a jack stand to support the drive shaft as I was pulling it out, but if you leave the rear yoke bolts in place the shaft will stay up and out of the way till you pull them.
7-the front yoke flange was a little stuck so I used a soft hammer (a block of wood and a hammer would suffice here) to knock it loose.
8-get your universal joints replace, preferable at a driveline shop where someone with experience can four properly. If you choose to do them yourself, you probably already know how to do this.
9-make sure that when you go to install your drive shaft that your yokes are online with each other, aka your bearing caps are online with each other from front to back, if not, undue strain will be put on your new driveline components.
10- now reinstall the front yoke onto the studs and loosely thread on a nut or two.
11-now drop a couple bolts through the rear yoke flange and mate those two surfaces threading on a couple nuts
12- install all the nuts on the front flange in an alternating pattern like you would lug nuts and the do the same on the rear
13-now torque them all to spec
14-regrease your splines and top off your u-joints just in case
15- put your vehicle in park and pull it off the stands and you are done.
On a side note, the price discrepancy on prices for Toyota u-joints (spyder universal kits) was huge. CDan was the best as usual with $65 at list then all my local parts departments were anywhere from 82-100!!!
Thanks again CDan for the support. If you choose not to go with Toyota, like I did (time constraints) make sure you don't go cheap, ask your supplier or shop where they get them from and let them know you want heavy duty and high quality. Supposedly you can get our u-joints for as cheap as 99 cents!!! Mine where in the $55 dollar range and the install was about 45mins in labor. So $176 out the door was my cost. The shop told me how to do it next time if I needed to do a trail replacement, that I'll leave to someone smarter than myself to explain.
Rant off!
