Has anyone attempt replacing their u-joints? I have a 2001 F250 CrewCab short bed and getting a squeek somewhere in the drive line. Happens on trans shift point and accelleration.

I have the last half of the drive shaft off and want to press off the old u-joints. What have been successful?

Dave

 

If you suspect it's u-joints and IF you have high milage on the truck, I would replace all the U joints and the carrier bearing. Get good ones ($$) with grease filttings and be done with it. You can rent a ball joint press at most auto part stores for free or just use the right size socket and beat the snot out of it. I prefer the press. The carrier bearing is PITA to press off. I just cut it off with a grinder (Carefully) and hammer it back on with a piece of pipe that will fit over the shaft (you'll see).

 

Yes, the press is the best way to do the U-joints. The BFH method }may{ give so much force that it bends the saddle ever so slightly and then you will have to get the driveline rebalanced.
And yes, spend the extra $$$ for the zerk joints. You will never have to do this job again.

 

Pressed them out with one of those monster C clamps. Still had a very hard time with them. Seems the rust on the inner portion of the cups were holding them in. What I ended up doing was to clean as much of the surface rust as possible with a Dremmel tool and then slightly push the caps through and clean the rest of the rust off. Then push them all the way. Made for a little more work, but I think worth it. Only two of the 12 caps actually popped off after pushing them as much as they would go. The others had to be coaxed out in some form. In fact some were so hard stuck in, that the top of the cap exploded off when pushing from the opposite side with the c clamp. First time it happened I thought a bullet shot out. I had shop rags covering everything but the cap hole just for that reason. I was placing so much pressure (I think) that I thought I was going to break the c-clamp.

Once they were all out, I cleaned all the rust from the yoke and pollished the inside. That made the installing of the new u-joints much easier, just slid in with much less effort.

I did replace all the u-joints, but the carrier bearing was replace about 2 yr ago. All the u-joints were still in very good shape. And I found the source of my squeek, and another possible problem. The squeek is my Torque Converter going out. Squeeks on shifts and some accelleration. Going bad now faster since it is pulling my idle down while in gear, and if I switch to nutral, the idle pops up to 900+ rpm and settles down to normal idle around 650 rpm. Brian (BTS) says it is probably my sprag in the TC going south.

Now another question, how much play should I see at the differential? I can turn the pinion at the differntial about 5*. What is normal or should I be thinking on getting a rebuild?

Thanks for all the help!

Dave

 

I wouldn't worry about the rear diff at all. There has to be a little bit of give for the pinion gear and also for the spider gears. The spiders have huge teeth and they need room to move.