I think the u-joints I had in my truck AND the replacement ones are a bit too long. Does this sound familiar to anyone? Or am I doing it wrong?

My U joints were making some noise on my 92 F150. Regular cab, long bed, 2WD, M5OD, 4.9L.
I've changed u-joints before a long time ago but this truck is new to me.
The old ones came out fairly easy. I noticed the clips were not seated all the way in their grooves and chalked it up to the PO being careless. I got the new parts from NAPA. I mic'ed the o.d.'s and compared the lengths of the new parts to the old parts. Size-wise they are the same. One of the old ones was greaseable and one was not. The fitting is in the cross. The new ones I got are greaseable thru the caps. One was in a NAPA box and the other in an SKF box. The SKF pn is UJ270, the napa pn is 270. The two parts are identical to each other and appear to be the same dimension as the old ones.
They don't fit well. I got one end together and could force the circlip in place but the joints get real tight. Obviously, that's going to be a problem. On the other end, I had some trouble getting it in and one of the needles must have fallen down. I heard a crunch and...yeah. O.K., that one's junk. I said hell with it and went in the house. I went to the dealer and ordered two new ones in the hopes they would be the correct part. I'm going to get the crunched one out tonight while I'm waiting on the Ford parts to arrive. I have no way to know if the drive shaft has been changed. It seems to fit the same on both ends of the shaft and both yokes. It really seems like the joints are about 1/32 too long overall. Especially since the old ones had the same issue with the clips. I have a factory service manual coming in the mail, BTW.
Thanks.

 

Sounds like you dropped a needle ... And it's inside the cap preventing the cap from going all the way on!

-Enjoy
fh : )_~

 

Well, I had to change the Ujoints recently on my 95 F250. Bought the ujoints from napa, the clips were tight to get on, the I realized all the dirt and rust around the clip area, I grabbed a screw driver cleaned up the slot for the clips and they went in very easy.

 

On one of them I did for sure. The seal obviously didn't seat all the way down. But they all seem just a little too long.

 

Mine were filthy too but I cleaned everything before installing. I ran a pick around the inside of the grooves.

 

Hammered in or pressed in?

-Enjoy
fh : )_~

 

I pressed them in with a bench vise.

 

It's possible to bend the ears on the driveshaft. It would be pretty hard to do with an average bench vise though.

 

That is far superior to a hammer ...

Did you put the snap ring in one side and push against it doing the other side?

I agree!

-Enjoy
fh : )_~

 

Actually it's very easy and common to bend the outer weaker part of the ear when you press or hammer u joints in or out, if you have a set of calipers (the measuring kind not brake kind) you will see what I mean as the distance between ears change the farther out you measure. A punch on the outer part of the ear is usually enough to give you room to get the snap ring in and allow the joint to move freely.

 

I got the new joints from the dealer. They are quite proud of them. They look very different but the sizes were the same. They came with two sets of clips that are different thicknesses. The instructions say to use the yellow set (thicker) unless you have difficulty. Then use the other set. Even with the thinner set the last clip on either side didn't want to go in. I took the clips to a sanding plate and just flattened them out. I took off less than .002" total. Then the clips would go in without force and the joints would move freely.
Yes, maybe the yokes have been bent inward enough to close up the distance between clips. Maybe it was machined at the small end of the tolerance...but all four?
I don't know. It's all together and doesn't make any noises anymore. Also the vibration at about 60mph that I thought was my tires is gone too.
Thanks everyone for your help.