Yep, if it's the output shaft/yoke bushing, it wouldn't make any noise in neutral sitting still. Perhaps rolling in neutral.

I've read that it's hard to find the correct bushing sleeve for the T5 transmissions in old 'late model' Mustangs, but the bushing sleeve for an AOD will fit, even though it is longer.

 

I'm not sure the noise is related to it though. It has rhythmic sound/feel to it like it's going with the rpm. I don't think the bushing would cause that if I was in drive with my foot on the brake and not moving, because that's what my transmission does.

 

Ahhh. Sorry, I was thinking it was a manual.

 

I've got a few more pictures to post. They're of the CV that goes in the double cardan joint and were taken before I smashed my thumb. I got the front shaft back in my Bronco a while back and it works great. I used to get a loud clicking noise while driving in 4wd that would sound like a roller coaster making its ascent up a big hill and would change its clicking speed based on how fast I was going. When I took my wife for a drive off road in the Bronco those were her words "It's like a scary roller coaster with the way we're bouncing around everywhere and that clicking!" It no longer makes that sound, so my assumption that it was the driveshaft and not the transfer case, or something else scary to think about, was right. I haven't gotten around to doing the rear shaft, but when I do I'll gather some more pictures of the double cardan and make a proper write up. All this crap weather is really killing my motivation to get under there and take things apart again.

I cleaned up the inside of the CV as much as I could by using carb cleaner, a wire brush, and a small flat head screwdriver to scrape with. It looked pretty good, but not quite like a brand new unit would. Make sure to clear out the vent hole that's beneath where the CV ball sits, mine was plugged with old grease. I couldn't get the needle grease fitting out, I'm assuming the threads were locked with rust like the old CV ball was, so I cleaned it out as much as I could and probed it with a tiny allen wrench to clear out the hole for the needle. I recommend inspecting the threads on the CV unit for the bolt holes that you use to bolt the shaft up to the transfer case and making sure they're in good shape before you go about hooking everything back up and realizing something isn't fitting right. I didn't have any issues, but I could see that being a problem with reusing old parts. I took it outside and sprayed some black paint on it and got it looking decent.

I tapped in the new CV ball with the only thing I had around that was a large enough diameter to fit it. My largest socket is 15/16 that I use on my steering wheel and it wasn't quite big enough. The handle on my floor jack was the right size, so I awkwardly used that and tapped it in. I had to be careful since the handle is made of aluminum, but other than that it went in easily, same with the oil seal that went on after that. There's one pic with the handle sitting on the CV and then one of my 15/16 deep socket and you can see how the 15/16 doesn't quite go all the way over the ball. I had the CV filled with grease before putting in the ball. You can see the grease coming out of the vent hole on the underside of the CV once I got it in, which I guess means I got plenty of grease in before I pressed the ball in. Excellent.

I also got the H yoke cleaned up and painted. It was raining out when I did it, so I put on some Nitrile gloves and painted it outside under some slight cover while holding it by the u-joint bores with my glove covered fingers, then took it inside and let it dry in my closet. lol. Hey whatever works. Apartment life sucks. I've said it before, I have more ingenuity than I do tools. The u-joint bores were pretty rough, but I got them cleaned up as well.

I noticed the u-joint straps were in bad shape. Smashed threads and one of them wasn't even in the correct shape anymore. It was like one side of the strap got torqued down more than the other and stretched it out. I'm fairly certain they're only supposed to be torqued at around 15-20 lb. ft. so you don't mess up the roundness of the bearing caps. I went and bought some new straps, they worked great.

 

Nice job on all that stuff!
Yeah, those u-bolts were buggered for sure.

I think the actual torque is even less than 20. More like 12-17 or something like that (just looked it up in Chilton's as 10-17), so you don't crush the cups.

Paul

 

Thanks. Its probably a common thing with those u-joint straps if they're original to a 40+ year old truck. I replaced the ones on the my F100's shaft as well, they had smashed threads, but weren't all out of shape like these were.