U-Joint Counsel

[harrietnorth]

Pulled axle shafts from my D60 to treat her with new ujoints. A task I’ve performed several times over the years on multiple vehicles. Upon reassembly, as you can see from the pic, c-clip groove isn’t presenting itself, and the ear looks bent.

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Any pro tips on solving this or am I screwed and need a new outer shaft?

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Thoughts?

 

[chillman88]

Looks bent, but wow you did a good job cleaning those yokes lol!

I've had that happen and pushing the u-joint a little while beating on the ear a lot helped. It might be bent after all but sometimes they are just stuck and binding. Worst case before you go buy a new stub shaft you could pull the joint back out and try very carefully spreading those ears with a hydraulic porta-power.

 

[franklin2]

Do you have a way to bend it back? I have that happen a lot on any driveshaft or axle u-joint that is stuck. You put it in the press to push it out, and the ear bends instead of the cup moving.

You might be able to take the c-clip off the other side you have in already, push the whole joint through so you can get the clip into the bent side, and then put it in the press and push against it and see if the clip would push it around and straighten it out a little bit. The axle doesn't turn very fast, so that is one thing that will help you if it isn't perfect.

 

[austin92]

I’ve hammered the ears apart on my jeep dana 30 shafts. They bent in trying to get the old u joint out. I wouldn’t buy a new shaft, just make sure the u joint moves freely


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[Black dawg]

You can try bending it back, but by that point it probably wont hold a cap tight. If you do plan to bend it back, completely remove that axle from the u joint first.

If you want to save yourself some work in the future, use spicer joints.
spl553x non greaseable and the preffered joint.
spl554x greaseable.

 

[BR3]

Visually, it does look slightly bent, if you can straighten that out, great. A hammer works wonders on something that is going to be trash if it can't be fixed anyway.

I will say that since you managed to get the cap in at all, it can't be bent that extremely. The cap fit should be tight enough that it wouldn't walk sideways in the hole without cracking as they are somewhat hardened, and they aren't cracked visually, and are in the hole, so there may yet be hope.

As far out as it is as well, there is always the chance a needle is in the cap. It's amazing how easily it can happen, even when using extreme care.

Though your scenario is different due to visual bending, normally on an internal c clip u joint, I would flat file the inner surface enough to get bright metal, and even on lower quality u joints it almost always got what I needed for a good seat on the c clip

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[subway]

i agree, remove that u-joint first and make sure the yoke is just not spring loaded. if it is truly bent i would try to straighten it first.

if the yoke cant hold the u-joint tightly anymore you can dimple around the inside of the yoke to give more bite on the u-joint itself.

 

[mblaney]

I have bent those before, then I changed my press method so that never happens again. It is easy to press on the center of the joint but you are actually trying to move both cups. Now I press on the other yoke, only one cup moves (out). Once one cup is mostly out, flip it over and press the other one out.

Here is a video of how I would NOT do it:

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This method requires half the press force (because only one cup is being removed at a time) and it is impossible to bend anything. It is a little more work to set up but worth it.

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