Re "Brutus " 1972 F250 Camper Sprcial 390 2V Motorcraft Carburetor/C6:
Recently enough I posted seeking help fixing a "roughness I feel through my accelerator pedal". I feel it acceleratoing all the time but its most pronounced when accelerating from a slow speed or stopped. It or something else also is robbing me of power I think I should have.
At the time I posted back then, I was also having tune up related driveability issues that had me wondering if I had an engine balancing problem. A few issues at the same time clouded things.

New spark plugs,and properly setting the timing resolved most of those driveability concerns. I need to fiddle with carburetor adjustments to see if I can further already good results.

My rough feel on acceleration appears to be in my drive shaft. I loaded my truck with a bed full of pavers yesterday and with this heavy load now hear the sounds of failing U Joints. I hear the sound binding u joints make when starting from a stop and gently proceeding forward. A slight incline amplifies the sound.

I think the drive shaft has all the original u joints and center support in it from the original build. This truck has ONLY 87,000 miles on it. It did have a massive camper on it previously for 48 years.

I need to drive this truck 30 freeway miles to off load those pavers in a few hours. I climbed under the truck and gave things a tug etc and see/feel nothing falling off. Unless otherwise fround on by you all for some reason, on my way to off load those pavers I'll take a mile detour to my storage unit and opperate my grease gun. I do use the grease gun on every oil change.i think there are 12 zerk fittings for this truck. I use a Milwaukee Cordless M12 grease gun because my tool supplier gave it to me.

Besides making sure I mark everything to make sure I can "clock" the drive shaft properly on reinstall do you have any other suggestions to make this repair go smoothly/properly?
Is there a particular brand of u joint and center support bearing I should buy??...I want quality parts. Is there a place that I can buy from that will save me some money?

I'll likely press the u joints myself and then have the guy who did a u joint on my tool truck check my work and see if this drive shaft needs balancing.

. 7 years ago I had a drive shaft vibration in my C600 tool truck I thought the driveshaft had thrown a weight or something. Drive shaft guy found the last u joint at the pinion was seized in one of its travel directions.

The folks that lengthened the frame had replaced all the other u joints when they did the stretch job adding the tool store box to the frame required. Who replaces every u joint except one? That particular drive shaft viration caused the nut that holds the yolk at the pinion to loosen and ruin the threads on the pinion shaft. I ended up having to replace an otherwise immaculate Eaton 1350 two speed carrier with another used unit. I couldn't find a replacement ring and pinion for it. I still have that carrier and occasionally look for a new ring and pinion for it. That now pinion shaft damaged carrier had slightly better freeway gearing. The one in the truck know actually works better for the stop and go city delivery type stuff my tool business has. The truck still does freeway speeds as long as the incline isn't too long.

Suggestions and any tricks etc to aide my successful fix of Brutus is appreciated


Brutus & "Ethyl *THE* Tool Truck (ETTT)

 

How did the greasing and unloading process go? Hope it didn’t give you any additional trouble on that 30 mile trip.

I don’t have any recent u-joint experience to lend, regarding which brand would be good and what source would be cheap.
Personally, when it comes to this kind of stuff anymore, I wouldn’t worry at all about who has the best price. Just who has the best product.
In the old days, you could count on just about any joint to be of sufficiently high quality.
Perhaps we still can in that regard?

As far as processes to make it go smoothly, how many actual shafts do you have? Is it a two-piece unit with a center bearing, or some variation on that?
Make sure you chock the wheels, or better yet, raise the rear end up off the ground and chock the front.
That way you can leave the parking brake released and be able to spin the shaft to get to all the fasteners.

As always, when you press in the new joints and have them fully clipped, make sure they move freely.
The simple trick that most people used to do, but that I noticed even some professionals don’t do anymore, is to smack the joint caps up against their respective clips. back-and-forth, one side, then the other.
This makes sure that the clips are seated, and that the caps are seated against the clips rather than up against the trunnion and that everything is free to move without binding.
Maybe you already do that, but I thought I’d mention it anyway just in case.

 

Thanks for answering Dave! Yes Mr Basecamp Brutus made it to and back home.

Thanks for reminding me to do that technique to seat the clips.

Greasing was a pita this time. There was too much weight to raise the rear tires. I had to roll under and out half a dozen times drive forward and back to get the zurk fittings positioned for the greate gun.

Without the load and with the ujoints freshly greased I no longer hear the failing ujoint and/or center support bearing tine,tine,tine,tine...etc sound that was happening slowly rolling along. The roughness holding light acceleration even unloaded at 30 & 40 mph seems diminished now also because of the grease.

I worked harder than I wanted to unload that bed full to the rails of pavers I take pride I can still do this type of physical
activity at my advanced age.

 

I did too. That is, until my shoulder bit the dust recently. :-(
So have fun staying healthy, but take care anyway!