Killed those angry squirrels!

[yaffy]

While I was over at Al's place installing my rockers I decided to overhaul my front drive shaft. I've had the "angry squirrels syndrom" for over a month now and finally fixed it


I don't have a 4x4 at the moment! My DS is still sitting in Al's basement


Barry and Al working on the clips

When I got the centering ball apart I could see right away why it was squeeking. The ball and the needle bearings inside were BONE DRY. Not a drop of lubrication. I had half the bearings fall out when I took it apart. Took me a half hour to get them all back in. I lubed the whole thing up real good with marine wheel bearing grease and we started putting it back together.


Found out the hard way what happens when a needle bearing in a cap falls over and you don't notice. We were cranking on the vise and heard a POP. The endcap just ripped right in half. Then taking it out we ripped the zirk fitting off. What a PITA. So the DS is sitting in Al's basement until I come back over today with a new Ujoint so we can reinstall it. I'm going to clean up the two better looking Spicer joints and use them as trail spares. The one at the driveshaft end of the CV joint was pretty bad (no slop though) so I'm just gonna toss it.

So the moral of the story is.... if you have an "angry squirrel" under your Jeep it is most likely just what Jerry said it was. Your centering ball is dirty or dry. Take that CV apart and lube it up. You won't be sorry

[vtx531]

How did you gets the bolts off on the t-case side? I bought a syringe, filled it with grease and shot some in the centering ball which stopped it but I don't know for how long. So...I'll probably have to take it off and do it right in a little bit.

[yaffy]

Barry took them off with a 1/4" drive ratchet. I'm hoping it won't be too hard for me to get them back on. My torque wrench is definately out of the question

Just contort your arm in ways you wouldn't think possible.

[PurpleTJ]

Hopefully you got all the pins in place... As far as getting at the bolts, I have a 1" TC drop, so I can see the driveshaft. I drop the front end first and then use something on the driveshaft to get leverage so it won't turn (either vice grips or one of those Craftsman strap wrenches). Then just rachet and socket. With the front off, you can turn the driveshaft and get at the bolts. Just undo the bolts a little at a time and work your way around the driveshaft. I found if you try to get one bolt off entirely at a time, your rachet gets stuck on the bolt and you can't remove it til you tighten it back up some. Just to 8-10 turns/ bolt and keep pulling your driveshaft towards the front of the vehicle. If you don't have the TC drop you will have to go entirely by feel. I just lie with my head out under the drivers side, my right arm goes through the rear of the transfercase skid, and the left is holding the strap attached to the driveshaft.. keeping it from spinning..

Good luck,

[yaffy]

I got it all back on farely easily today. I just got the Ujoint seated into the yoke on the Tcase, put the bolts into one side, tighten them a little (not too much!), then rotated the DS 180° and did the same on the other side. It was helpful having someone else rotating the DS. I put the Ujoints into the front yoke on the axle to keep it from turning. My 1" BL helped with getting to the bolts too. With no Tcase drop and no BL it would be a tight fit