Had my first part failure today

Besides a battery and Brake pads, My taco had its first part failure today at 111k miles . The middle U-joint on the rear driveshaft is toast. Even greasing every 30k miles with Mobil1 synthetic grease.

Yesterday on the way home from work, I noticed a clicking sound from my driveline at slow speeds and by the time I was close to home I noticed a lot of driveline vibration and humming in 1st gear. I suspected it was a U-joint going bad so I rolled around under the truck on the creeper inspecting the u-joints and checking the cv joints in case. All the CV's looked good but I noticed a bit of slop in the middle u-joint on the rear driveshaft, I could see exposed shiny metal which isnt normal.

Then on the way to work this morning it was clicking really bad at almost any speed and I was getting a lot of driveline vibration at any speed. Even though I can change it myself, I decided to drop it off at my next door neighbor's repair shop since I have a super busy weekend and won't have time to fix it. It needs to be fixed asap before the u-joint breaks and I'm stranded. Fortunately I made it to his shop this morning.

He's gonna replace it with a Moog heavy duty greasable u-joint and I'll pick it up this afternoon.

 

woot
for not exploding on parkway

 

Why do we park on a driveway and drive on a parkway?

 

my parkways here are just that we park on them and roll at slow speed

 

Here's a completely unrelated pic ... Happy now?!

 

I had to have a u joint replaced on my 07 taco at 34k miles. It started squeeking really bad and would increase as my speed increased. luckily I was still under warrenty at the time.

 

Normal wear and tear it sounds like, thats quite a lot of miles for a u-joint.

 

If your doing lots of what is pictured with your truck I am sure you can chalk this up to normal wear and tear...

 

Maybe it's because I wasn't there, but it sure looks like if you would have just stayed to the far right, you wouldn't have needed to straddle that gully.

 

what? you are macgyver you should have fixed that u-joint with a piece of bubble gum and a toothpick in 30secs.

 

Nah there wasn't enough room. There is a tree line right at the left side edge of the picture.

Just picked up the truck from the shop. It's all better now. $51 for the repair.

I would have fixed it myself because I do all my own work (I'm macgyver after all ) but I don't have time this weekend to fix it. It needed to be fixed ASAP.

He said when he took the old joint out, it was cracked. It was vibrating really bad on the way to the shop regardless of speed and continuously clicking and popping.

 

Thanks for the heads up OP. I developed a little vibration after the last off road trip and am going to look into this.