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A good friend of mine and I are going to replace all of the U-joints on the front and rear driveshafts of my truck in January. There seems to be a lot of confusion as to what U-joints fit on what configuration of truck regarding the driveshafts. I spoke to several different shops, referenced several different diagrams and the outcome was not the same most of the time. I received four different answers from four different shops as to what I needed. I finally resorted to getting the measurements from Spicer and measuring the U-joints on my truck.
As you will see below, the information can be all over the place, but measuring what you have on your truck is the only true way to identify what you need. I would suggest that if you are ordering parts for the driveshafts that you too measure instead of taking the word of a document or hoping to get the right part from a shop that cannot see or touch the driveshaft. Obviously if you take the truck someplace, this advice would be different.
I have a 2000 F-250 ZF6 SRW 4x4 short bed super cab truck with a 141.8" wheel base. My truck also has a single piece rear driveshaft and no carrier bearing. It does however have 3 (three) U-joints on the rear driveshaft. This also seemed to be a point of concern from the parts retailers. Two of the four insisted that if I had a single piece driveshaft in the rear that I only had 2 U-joints...
According to the spreadsheet below, I should need 5-1410x for the rear driveshaft and 5-1350x for the front driveshaft.
Front driveshaft, which appears to be the only commonality throughout our trucks when looking at driveshaft U-joints.
At first glance of the image below, this rear driveshaft may appear to be the right one, but it is not. Even if it is, the part number of "4635" listed is not very helpful...
Getting further down the document, things get more confusing... Does my truck have a 141" wheelbase as indicated in the image just above, or does it have a 142" (141.8" rounded up) wheelbase as indicated in the image below. Also note that the front (transmission side) of the rear driveshaft is different where the image above has a single U-joint and the image below has two U-joints toward the front.
Moving down yet another image in the documentation, there is another single piece driveshaft... This one is labeled as for the Excursion though, so this one can probably be discarded...
The Spicer 5-1350X has a 1-3/16” bearing cap diameter and 3-5/8” across and the Spicer 5-1410X has a 1-3/16” bearing cap diameter and 4-3/16” across. By completely ignoring the diagrams, images and parts lists above, I measured 5 of the 6 U-joints at 3-5/8" across and the 6th U-joint at 4-3/16" across. Turns out that the front driveshaft requires Spicer 5-1350x. The front (transmission side) two U-joints on the rear driveshaft requires Spicer 5-1350x and the rear (differential side) requires Spicer 5-1410x.
Just goes to show you that no matter how much research, digging into documentation, analyzing images you do, sometimes the best method of figuring things out is to get the tape measure and see it with your own eyes.
I want to say If you do U-joints,make sure that those lockrings snaps on..
I messed on that and i had to replace both new joints in the driveshaft..
Was a hurry to family vacation..
On that 800 kilometer trip,fuel consumption was 11liter per 100 km...
Too lazy to convert to mpg...
If you have a 1-pc rear shaft I don’t know how you’d have 3 universals on it. My truck is a 2wd and has a 2-pc setup with 3 universals and 1 center support bearing but it needed the Spicer 1410’s (the larger ones). The front shaft I think uses the smaller 1350’s.
Dont recal if your truck is a long or short box but IIRC they also make an aluminum replacement shaft for the short box 4x4’s.
You getting some shuddering under acceleration? I would just crawl under there to see which setup you have.
If you have a 1-pc rear shaft I don’t know how you’d have 3 universals on it. My truck is a 2wd and has a 2-pc setup with 3 universals and 1 center support bearing but it needed the Spicer 1410’s (the larger ones). The front shaft I think uses the smaller 1350’s.
Dont recal if your truck is a long or short box but IIRC they also make an aluminum replacement shaft for the short box 4x4’s.
You getting some shuddering under acceleration? I would just crawl under there to see which setup you have.
Well sir, I do in fact have a single piece rear driveshaft that is pictured in the second driveshaft image above. There are two 1350's and one 1410 and there IS NOT a carrier bearing or center support.
I have a short bed truck, as I stated above as well.
No shuddering or problems currently, just doing some preventive maintenance with a friend.
I did crawl under the truck and measured each U-joint on each driveshaft, as I stated above as well. That was the whole message I was trying to get across.
Good information, thank you for posting it. I think mine will be done at the driveshaft shop.
the shop charged me about $250 to pull the shaft and install 3 new ones, which I supplied. Minimum you need a ball joint press but I got lazy and just paid them to do it since I was in a hurry. Developed a pretty serious shudder under acceleration and that fixed it. I opted for the greasable ones.
I'll be watching for the January update to see how it all goes, and what tools you use especially to press the caps in and out. Have you already done the ones on the front axles?
The U-joints that I replaced in my tractor PTO shafts and my S-15 Jimmy I just used sockets and my vise to press them in and out. I also have a torch to help when they don't want to come apart.
I'll be watching for the January update to see how it all goes, and what tools you use especially to press the caps in and out. Have you already done the ones on the front axles?
I have not done any of the U-joints since buying the truck almost 6 years ago. The driveshaft (both) U-joints are not causing issues, but are certainly showing their age. We use the truck to tow heavy and I do not want one of these to fail on me, so some preventive maintenance is in order.
My friend that I will be assisting has the tools and experience to tear down and rebuild an entire 7.3L truck piece by piece. I trust his guidance and opinions on anything mechanically related.
I have not done any of the U-joints since buying the truck almost 6 years ago. The driveshaft (both) U-joints are not causing issues, but are certainly showing their age. We use the truck to tow heavy and I do not want one of these to fail on me, so some preventive maintenance is in order.
My friend that I will be assisting has the tools and experience to tear down and rebuild an entire 7.3L truck piece by piece. I trust his guidance and opinions on anything mechanically related.
Nice, all you have to do is pass the tools, guzzle your beer and stay out of the way.
In addition to the information provided above by me and the other FTE members, I have a couple more nuggets of good advice.
If/when the u-joints are replaced on a driveshaft that has a "double cardan" joint like the front drive shaft or the rear single piece on a short bed super cab truck, the double cardan internals should be inspected/changed/serviced too. This consists of a spring, ball, seal and grease.
Ball repair kit - Moog 617 (the 617 part number also cross checks with SKF, precision, etc...) -
@SkySkiJason was nice enough to research all of this for me after I failed to identify the required parts this past weekend when we got together to change the rear driveshaft U-joints. Parts are on their way to him now and the truck should be back on the road soon.
Alright!! I can’t find the video of the rig doing a Double c/v joint salute to all at the gathering but it’s banging every rotation!! I’ll be ordering up these parts hopefully soon enough!! Another strange u-joint mystery I went to the dealer purchased a new u joint based on the vin And there was a half a millimeter play in the new joint exiting the rear end. Slapped a SS washer in one of the caps no more play 30k miles later Going back to the dealer gave them the Vin explained what happened last time and of course I still had that tiny amount of play. If anybody else has run into this issue please comment below thanks.
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Do you know your U-joints?
