Well decided to remove the rear drive shaft today to replace the ujoints. Was kind of stumped when i took off the upper ujoint and noticed some weird bearing in the yoke with a rubber seal. By the way my rear drive shaft is split (meaing it has two parts to it). Does eveyone else have this same bearing. Thought about replacing it because the little rods fell out of it when i took the shaft apart to replace the ujoints. This is not a common part because i checked all the parts stores and no one had it. Tried the stealership and they refered me to a drive line shop that is not open on the weekends. Was wondering what this does and if its a big deal if i dont replace it at the moment. Gonna call around tommorrow and see if anyone else might have one. If all else fails I will put it back together and see how it works. I figured the part is so small it couldnt do to much but still am not sure. Any help....

 

i'm confused, got any pics? DW

 

Nope dont have a digi camera. I'll try to explain better. I pulled off the rear drive shaft. On the front part that connects to the differential it has two ujoints on that end. on the front most ujoint if you take it off the housing that holds it all together has a bearing looking deal in it sitting in a rubber casing. The dealership just said its a yoke with a bearing in it. The bearing faces the same way the shaft does and just faces to the transfer case. It has a little spring in it and slides over a nipple looking piece when you have it all put back together.

 

Looking at the online manual my drive shaft i think is the double cartian assembly one.

 

Okay your talking about the double cardan joint, I looked it up in my haynes manual. If i had a good way to scan them id send you pages on it, but you can buy a haynes manual for $12 #36058 It does say that there are repair kits for it. DW

 

Ive got a haynes and chilton. But where would you find this repair kit. The autoparts (Autozone and some other local ones said they don't have anything like that).

 

well have you tried a NAPA store ? other than that you might try a clutch/driveline shop. I wouldn't think it would be that odd. but who knows? DW

 

from reading in the manual i think mine is fine. but it looked like it had the little bearing wire lookin pieces in it like you see in the ujoints when you pull the caps off on them to slide them in. does that sound right or could maybe some have fallen in while i was removing the old ones. it was hard to tell because of the grease. and because i had been working on it painstakingly trying to remove the old ujoints before i could see in it and see what was going on.

 

This is the joint your talking about right?

 

yep. i just looked online on napa and saw that they have a u-joints double cardan cv ball kit. i think this might be it. will not know until i can call em up in the morning.

 

Due to the very short rear drive shaft, which makes a sharp angle when the rear axle is high or low, they used the double cardan CV setup there. The two joints act like a CV joint, the output speed of the joint mirrors the input speed throughout reasonable angles. I haven't pulled the Bronc's out, but I have worked on double cardan CV joints before.

It is important to match mark the yokes and the H yoke, so it all goes together the way it came apart. The order of taking it apart is the way it goes back together. It is not as simple as it sounds!

Both types have a connection through the H yoke, with a centering ball. This stops the H yoke from going into an oscillation, and also splits the angle evenly between the two U joints themselves. I have seen two different types of these. One has a ball that pops into a socket. The socket has a grease seal, three rim pieces that are each 1/3rd of a circle, then a washer, then a coil spring. They are reasonable to work on.

The second type must have been invented by the devil himself. This type has a captive ball in a joint, and a full set of needle bearings on a steel peg that turns inside of it. It is torture to get the thing back together properly, without dislocating one or more of the needles down to the bottom. It makes working on a regular U joint pleasurable by comparison.

 

Take it from my experience, get it put back together right. I thought I had all of the needle bearings in there. After 1000 miles I had to have it rebuilt. It just tore itself apart.

 

Yep took my time and got it all back together. It was a little pain but not to bad. Went ahead and bought the new center bearing and replaced it. Was a pain to get the shaft together and hit that hole while lining up the ujoints and their holes. but if you take your time its not that bad. those needle bearings can be a booger if you dont watch out. and the only place i found that has that center bearing part is Napa. Thanks to DW2455 for that info.