Im taking the advice of a post and will lubricate the front drive shaft slip yoke on my 99 Sport, hopefully relieving the clunking. I have the Haynes manual but am having trouble following the process to do this specific procedure (seems to be intertwined with other tasks). I will have the front drive shaft off this weekend for another task and would like to do the slip yoke lube at the same time. Can someone give me a detailed process of lubing that part (any disassembly needed? any special tools needed? anything to watch out for?). Any and all info is GREAT!
Thanks!
JDP

 

The front slip yoke is part of your front driveshaft. When you pull your front driveshaft off, you will see the splined end at the front. That is the part that you want to lubricate. Ford specifies white lithium grease to lubricate it. I used high-temperature wheel bearing grease when I last did mine about 25K miles ago and it has held up fine. The hardest part the first time was removing Ford's special clamps on the rubber boot at the front of the driveshaft. I destroyed mine getting them off. I am sure there is probably some special tool to make removal and reinstallation easier, but I found the cheaper and easier method to just use a couple of hose clamps. You will need two different sizes. I think one was about 1 1/4" in diameter and the other was about 1 3/4". I was concerned about vibration caused by using hose clamps instead of Ford's special clamps so I offset the adjuster nut on both clams by 180 degrees. I have not had any vibration and neither have other people I have spoken to that have done the same thing. It's a pretty simple process. Once you've done it the first time and replaced Ford's clamps, the next time can be done in about 30 minutes. I sprayed degreaser (I think I used brake cleaner) inside the hole that the end of the driveshaft slides into. I then put a cloth rag on the end of a small screwdriver and kept working it in and out until it came out clean. My driveshaft didn't have any grease on it to begin with so I just put new grease on it. I think all of the grease slides off into the end of the slip yoke which causes it to bind up. The first time I had the problem at about 30K miles, I had Ford fix it. The Service Advisor told me then that it looked like it never came from Ford with any grease on it. When I did it myself the next time at about 60K miles, there was no grease again. Once I lubricated it the clunkin went away again. Right now I have about 88K miles on my '97 and don't have the clunking. I will wait for it to show up before lubing it again.

 

OK, I got the front of the driveshaft (meaning the end at the differetial/axle) off but I couldnt get the rear section at the transfer case off. I removed the clip securing the rubber dust boot but couldnt get the shaft to move out of the dust boot. Am I missing something? I also tried unbolting the part of the shaft right behind the dust boot but that wouldnt come off either. Can you be a bit more detailed in removing the rear section of the drive shaft?

 

AFTER RE-READING MY POST I NEED TO MAKE A CORRECTION. THE SLIP YOKE IS AT THE FRONT OF THE REAR DRIVESHAFT, NOT THE FRONT DRIVESHAFT AS I POSTED.

That said, which driveshaft are you trying to take off? The slip yoke is at the front of the rear driveshaft. You need to remove the bolts that hold the rear of the driveshaft to the differential flange. Once they are removed and the clamps on the rubber boot at the front of the rear driveshaft are removed, the driveshaft will slide right out. Remove the rear bolts, push it in a bit so that you can let it down out of the flange, slide it out of the rubber boot. Sorry for any confusion my first message caused. It's been 18 monts since I last did mine and I had a little memory failure.

Robert

 

Robert

I am looking to tackle this soon myself and I have 1 more question for you. When you remove the driveshaft do you have to worry about how it is oriented when reinstalling? Should I mark it somehow so that I get it back in the same way it came out, or does it even matter?

Thanks again
Dale

 

I used "white-out" to paint the driveshaft flange and the differential flange to make sure I got the bolts back in the same holes they came out of. I think my Haynes manual recommended marking it. It wouldn't hurt.

Robert