Drive Shaft Cardin Joint remove

I’m gonna rant a little on this. I’ve been driving Yotas for years, and in my opinion there isn’t anything more reliable, but when something does happen, why in the hell are parts so hard to find and why so expensive.

I have 2002 Tacoma 2.7l dbl cab. Started hearing some noise form driveline. Got under the truck and noticed it had a 2 piece driveshaft with a Cardin joint just after the swinger bearing. Took that part of the driveshaft out and checked universal joints in the Cardin joint. Had one bad and took it out and when I separated the ball and socket part all the needle bearings where broke. Well I called local parts houses and no luck, so I called Toyota place. The idiot in the parts dept with the parts diagram sitting in front of him didn’t have a clue what I was talking about so I asked to talk to a technician. The technician new exactly what I was talking about. I explained I couldn’t find replacement needle bearings, whole Cardin joint assemble or pretty much anything with this component. He pretty much informed me that the only way to fix is a whole new drive shaft. My response was, how much. 1100. Haha that’s funny. Luckily I found a wrecked 04 with decent joints in it. So I spent 75 on it and slapped it in.

My question is, has anybody tried doing away with the Cardin joint and just installing a normal u joint in place. This is bullshit to have a design like this in a light duty truck. Any information would be helpful.

 

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/single-and-two-piece-driveshaft-vibes-be-gone.475797/

Not a specific answer, but here's a really long thread on driveshafts.

 

look for a driveline shop in your area. They will be familiar with the situation and might have a better parts source or will do the job for you.

 

I am lucky Local Drive line Shop rebuilds these for me.

I am to the point I no longer ever mess with drive shafts at all .

Parts and labor I think reasonable great turn around time

 

I don’t mind rebuilding them, but damn, put the parts to rebuild them on the market and compete with prices comparable to ford or Chevrolet. This may be my last Yota. This ain’t even a major breakdown. I’d rather have a ford and put a ujoint in it every 30k miles as long as I can get the part at a reasonable price.

 

in my experience when parts are difficult to obtain there is usually an economic reasom behind it and the aftermarket doesnt see any profit in it. Most of the time it is a head scratcher like this. With the number of 1st gen Tacomas that are still driving around you would think that there would be things like this avalible. My brothers flex-fuel Ranger had to sit for 3 months while a fuel pump module could be sourced. Regular fuel modules litter the market but the special stainless steel lined ones, not so much.

 

The problem is Toyota didn't want to provide replacement parts for the u-joints or center ball that make up the double cardan joint. Toyota is usually good about providing replacement parts but they did screw us on the driveshafts. The available replacement u-joints and center ball from Spicer are suspect quality. A owner of a driveline shop local to me in San Jose, California with over 30 years experience in the business doesn't rebuild them because of the parts available to do the job. He will just build the person another driveshaft instead with parts that are quality and easy to obtain. In the 3rd Gen 4runner arena, lots of guys just replace the driveshaft with one from Tom Woods that runs in the neighborhood of $500.

 

https://www.driveshaftparts.com/
https://www.marlincrawler.com/axle/drive-shafts
Marlin or High angle driveline, call them.

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/double-cardan-joint.273119/

 

The grease zerks on the Cardon are often ignored resulting in failure. I grease my zerks with oil change. If I ever do get a bearing failure I'm sure the bearing shop has replacements for pennies on the dollar. Worst case scenario is drop off at drive shaft shop bc I'm busy or lazy.

 

I agree that a DS would be better off at a DS shop. Super quick, reasonably, inexpensive, and they have the parts and knowhow. I don't mind paying Toyota prices on many things simply because most of them have gotten me over 200k on the odometer before I replaced simply out of preventative maintenance. Like the O2 sensors that were fine but I changed along with a few others. Most OEM parts are good for 100k+

Driveshaft has 235k and counting...

 

Find a shop that has a clue.

Every part of a 1st gen drive shaft is available from numerous sources. Good shops have been doing this since time began.
Drive line shops are known to cover for their ignorance and/or lack of experience with 100% BS excuses because they think the public is mostly gullible enough to accept it.
They come up with completely false things like "it will never balance", "there is a double secret lock nut", "can't get the parts" and my favorite "the caps are crimped in with a special machine".
A well set up shop can also weld on/balance an entire DC assembly if needed (bad yoke/s).

There are indeed some unique "tricks" to Tacoma/Toyota specific DC but it's not rocket science. I have talked several folks with minimal mechanical experience thru it.

There are two variations in the u-joints themselves and also two "center ball repair kits" with your choice of steel or brass (OE) races.
https://www.highangledriveline.com/ has the best (OE equivalent) u-joints for some of the models.

How it's done, parts/style identification and some newer parts sources at the end.
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/double-cardan-joint.273119/#post-6745013

 

Toyotapartsdeal.com is where I get all my oem parts now, you dont have to deal with the dealer idiots either which is nice. I agree with the others, contact high angle driveline. Jess is awesome and knows his shit when it comes to toyota drivetrains. Another option is to keep your eyes peeled on the for sale forum here and what not and just get a "new" driveshaft. I paid like 200 shipped for my spare shaft off someone on here and it's in great shape.

Lesson learned to religiously grease that shaft and joint, they are really hard to find parts for!!

 

Well, the guy who runs the shop I mentioned definitely knows his shit. Now, is he giving me some bullshit about the the quality of the replacement parts available for this job? Maybe he is because for some weird reason. I would imagine he would rebuild these double cardan joints all day every day because he's in the business to make money but it makes perfect sense to me that he doesn't want to rebuild them because he wants satisfied customers and it does his business no good to have people coming back soon after a repair because the parts he used didn't hold up. Now, his ploy could be to up-sell people on a new driveshaft but a decent amount of people might leave his establishment and go elsewhere to get the work done.

This shop I'm talking about cut off a bad spline section on my 1st Gen 4runner front driveshaft and welded on a heavy duty Trail Gear spline and slip assembly and then rebalanced it for me. I figured if my double cardan joint ever went bad, I'd either have them build me a whole new driveshaft or cut off the DC assembly and weld on a new one that has high quality u-joints that are easy to source.

Anyway, I'm not here to start an argument. I'm just sharing what I know on the subject.

 

i feel as though i maybe having to trek the 1700 miles this summer to have you diagnose some weird funky gremlin summer vibe i had last year for the 1st time. it got so bad it felt the whole rig was falling apart! ... only happened at 2.1k RPM
the local Toyota mechanics wanted the $100s for diagnosis fee because they could not figure it out from just my verbal explanation of what what weirdly happening only in the summer

 

Toyota dealers won’t replace U-joints at all, only complete assemblies due to vibration complaints after repairs. Toyota does not stock or sell the joints for the cardan joints, never have.
The aftermarket parts available for the cardan joint are of suspect quality, and the end result regardless of ability usually ends up in a vibration that can’t be cured.

Been there multiple times, I fought this in my 3rd gen 4Runner 5 times, 3 different shops. ALWAYS a vibe somewhere around 60-70mph. Which is the speed vehicle is operated at most.

I ended up with a total replacement shaft from an online seller using all spicer parts including the cardan joints and ball. Should have gone this direction the first 3 times for the monies spent chasing the vibe.

admittedly, a few of the “rebuilds” were don’t by someone who had no care in their job, and that was addressed as well.

“Are you sure it isn’t a loose pinion, transfer case flange, muffler bearing” by multiple people.

YES, I had a spare shaft that has it’s own issues that wasn’t suitable for long term use, the vibes changed when that was installed.

new shaft has been vibe free for several years. Being able to drive 70+ has been freeing. Runner rides nice down the interstate cruise set at 75 and keeping up with traffic.

https://www.wholesaleimportparts.com/Toyota_Drive_Shaft.php

You’ll be hard pressed to get a shop to meet the price and not have vibes.

YMMV

just some dumb ass off the inter webs

 

I'm sure you'll be able to figure it out. Intermittent problems can be a pain to figure out though. If it becomes a more consistent problem, it will be easier to diagnose and fix.

 

i just don't want to start throwing all kinds of new parts at it to make it stop!

 

https://www.wholesaleimportparts.com/Toyota_Tacoma_Driveshaft_1997.php

nearly $700 for the one on my truck (bottom one on that list) and it does not even have 150k miles yet
the vibes i have been having nobody else on TW has seemed to ever have had, that i found yet anyways

 

its $1200+ from the dealer

I racked up almost $1000 in rebuilds ($250 pretty much every time) on my Runner, the shaft from the link above was $600 at the time, trying to not buy a new one from dealer..... I saved nothing.

the rear shaft in my ‘08 DCSB PreRunner was replaced by dealer just prior to my buying the truck, had one bad joint, easily replaced. Dealer would only replace whole assembly. It was a fleet vehicle at the time, my boss wasn’t happy about it. No grease fittings on the prerunner shafts.

the 4wd shafts have grease fittings, gotta make sure they stay greased regularly and out of mud and water. And if submerged, grease ASAP to flush the water out.

I offered an option an opinion and experience with similar issue, one big bite and be done, of smaller bites and chase it around.....