So I blew the bearings out of the rear U-joint of my driveshaft running it in RWD. It had been making a squeeking in 4wd for about a year, and I thought it was just the carrier bearing, but it was the U-joint. I went to use my spare driveshaft, and found it's U joint was loose too. It was less loose, so I used it, now they are both equally loose.

 

The bearings are staked into place, but could be pressed out and new ones put in I think. Does anyone know if this can be done or has been done? I'm out of spare driveshafts.

Yes, it can be done. There's a toyota part number that fits. Old U's have to be unstaked, and the yokes have to be made capable of accepting the toyota joints.... all in all too much work.

 

It's not economically viable. A driveline shop will charge well over $100 for the job as it's a real PITA. It would be better to just grab an EA81 driveshaft and have it lengthened. At least those already have replaceable U's, and the shop only needs to replace the tube, and not all the yoke's.

 

Or even better - find a good used one. I've used shafts with well over 200k with no problems. And I can routinely find them with much less than that. The last one I picked up with 130k on it. Very good condition. But here on the west coast we don't have the salt and rust issues. If you get a decent shaft and keep it slathered with some grease to keep the rust and salt at bay you should be fine for the life of the car.

 

GD

i'm with GD, usually a used shaft is fine. get two so you have a back up. they can be found for cheap. i have a couple lying around myself.

 

i did install Rockford Ujoints in my XT6 driveshaft. they make a ujoint that's meant to replace the Subaru staked in ujoint. like GD said you have to cut the old one out and do some manipulating to install the new ones, but it can be done. i have an XT6 driveshaft with 3 new u joints in it and they are replaceable and greaseable now.

 

i cut out the ujoints and took the shaft and new joints to the shop and they charged $100 to machine the shaft and install the joints. it's an expensive endeavor. i had 3 or was it 4 driveshaft failures and just got tired of replacing them, and even with a couple parts cars of my own i was starting to run out!! so i went for the new ones. but i put lots of miles on my vehicles and plan on keeping them for a loooong time.

http://www.rockforddriveline.com/replacem.htm

 

Found these thanks to Gary.

i scanned in and posted pictures of the installation instructions that come with these ujoints. i either posted them on this forum or over at http://www.xt6.net it's been a while, but from memory i believe they lean more on the generic side and don't specify every little detail.