U-Joint Replacement

i replaced mine under warranty. 50 bucks and a loaner car for 2 days to take to santa cruz haha

 

Thats what mine did. When you let off the gas, no noise. You need to replace the ujoint. I had only one binding at the time.

 

Thanks Sean.

Quick, give me a .gif!

 

i think im starting to experience this. mine is only at slow speeds around 5-6 mph. is this the same for you? also, whats the worse case scenario if it isnt replaced in a timely manner ?

 

Worst case. You've seen those vehicles on the side of the road with their drive shaft laying in the road? That is what will happen if you continue to drive & it finally breaks the U-joint.

I drove mine probably 100 miles before I fixed it. mainly because I didn't know what was wrong. I was lucky I didn't drop the drive shaft.

Info Chris4x4 gave me when mine was bad: Crawl under the vehicle & try to turn the drive shaft. If there is any play, then it is a u-joint. I wasn't able to get a grip on mine & couldn't tell, so i took it to a shop. they put it on a lift & showed me the play in it. They also showed me which joint was bound up. Sent it to a machine shop, pressed in a new u-joint, & I was out in about 1 1/2 hours. To me it was worth paying someone to do it. I had no time & no idea how to do it. I watched them & it looked easy. Just a few bolts & out it came.

 

How much "play" should be in the drive shaft? Mine turned about quarter to half inch??? When theyre good is there no movement at all?

 

This is how we did mine and a buddy's u-joints. $16 and some hours, we had two shitty non-greasing u-joints that should never have been there exchanged with two u-joints with zerk fittings.

 

exactly. When I checked mine out for the first time after hearing noises, they moved about a quarter of an inch. Mine right now have no play at all, so if it's enough to give a noticeable wiggle, you're gonna want to replace them. You'll really know when you start hearing strange torquing noises when going uphill and downhill. When ya open them up, you'll find dust where the pins should have been.

 

Thanks Greg, I made an appointment at Toyota today to have them switched out...I drive too far to work to be messing around. I told Toyota, I'm not in the mood to have my drive shaft laying in the middle of Rt. 78 trying to get to work.

 

I hear ya, man! That's something you do NOT want slipping out under there. When I inspected my u-joints after pulling them, I can say I was probably a few miles from the shaft falling out. The damn things were completely busted all around, had no pins, and almost fell apart. It definitely gives some security. Make sure Toyota installs some with grease-able zerk fittings!! It will save you time and money later if you grease them regularly

 

Will do...looks like mine have them now.

 

Turned out to be pinion bearings...$1200 and 5 days in the fucking shop. Luckily the service manager shops at my store and is giving me 5 days of a rental car and if they get it done in less time hes taking the remaining rental charges off of my service bill.

 

Just read up on pinion bearings. The howling is caused by lube failure or gear overload when howling is at certain speeds (as mine is)
Sucks but good info to have...

 

i literally just got home from replacing my carrier bearing which was $206 list price and when i was installing it i noticed one of the spider joints was locked in one direction so i replaced that as well $75 list price. Took me about 2 hrs total.

Btw the carrier bearing broke because of the locked up spider joint. my truck has 69k miles.

 

Going to give this thread a bump just so people will pay more attention to their ujoints and driveshafts.

I had the front ujoint go out on me a month ago as I was getting on the interstate. (@135k miles) The driveshaft was thrown sideways into my exhaust and then hit the ground very hard. Tried replacing just the ujoint, but ended up having to replace the entire driveshaft bc it was out of round. Very hard to find a replacement out of a salvage yard. Finally back in my truck at 4 weeks of tons of issues getting it replaced.

I don't know about most of you, but it put me in a rough spot to come up with the money to get it fixed and only be able to look at my truck. Check your driveshafts!

 

I have one getting bad at 179,000 Km (111,200 miles) but I admit I have been somewhat neglagent in greasing over the past year. Will see today how much it costsw to get one replaced in Canada.

 

Not trying to steal this thread, but I have a squeaking from under my truck. Doesn't happen in reverse, only drive. I can only hear it at around 0-25 or 35 mph. Then I guess to much road noise. Put it on stands, and it sounds like it is coming from the rear u-joint. I don't feel any play in the shaft though. Could the U-joint be making a almost rubber squeaking sound, before going out? '05 prerunner dbcb. 121k miles

 

Around 120k miles is when I had one go bad on my 05. It felt like my wheels were egg shaped when going slow. On the interstate the floor had a bad vibration. I took mine to a Goodyear & had them check it. One of the U joints was coming apart. $130 and a couple hours & it was good as new.

 

I have no real feelings of vibration. Just the annoying squeak. I just sprayed some WD40 on the ujoint to see if that would quiet it down. It seems like it may have quieted it somewhat. I went ahead and went and bought a Ujoint. Tomorrows project I guess.

 

Not sure what you paid for a u-joint, but I bought one for $19 at NAPA and replaced it myself in 2 hours with a vice and a socket lol (on my 2nd gen) It was the rear one at the diff.