Front drive shaft- lost orientation marks!!

Hey All,

I replied on another front driveshaft rebuild thread but I thought I should probably post my own as no to hijack!

So I pulled the front driveshaft (along with the engine, transmission, transfer case haha) and going through the process of replacing the ujoints and center joint...well after heating up 12 ends caps to get the nylon out and scrubbing them down with paint thinner and acetone, I lost my orientation marks!!

I think I may have been able to keep the front and back in phase as there is a double spline notch on top, directly inline with the back yoke and there is a casting number that will orientate right side up but then the center connector leaves me a 50/50? Does anyone know if there is a way to tell?!

Or do I just put it back together and get it balanced?!

Thanks!

I'm not aware if there's a way. But that's a good excuse to have it balanced when you are done, lol.

They should be keyed to fit one another?

Vbb199 said:

They should be keyed to fit one another?

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Keyed? I'm not sure I follow?

On another note, I took out the rear driveshaft ujoints tonight and it looks like the yoke has seen some harsh times..should I replace this?

With a double cardan joint at one end of the shaft the orientation of the u-joint at the other end doesn't matter. U- joint phase only matters if there's 1 u- joint at each end of the shaft.

Ilgy84 said:

With a double cardan joint at one end of the shaft the orientation of the u-joint at the other end doesn't matter. U- joint phase only matters if there's 1 u- joint at each end of the shaft.

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But if the double cardan has a heavy side, it will throw off the shaft balance if it is installed 180* from how it originally was.

50-50 chance?...

bucket said:

But if the double cardan has a heavy side, it will throw off the shaft balance if it is installed 180* from how it originally was.

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That what I was looking at on the H-joint as it looks like it had some extra material on one side...I was then thinking that maybe that is the ONLY balanced part in a double cardan setup? If that joint was off balance to either side, wouldn't it throw the entire shaft off?

scenic760 said:

That what I was looking at on the H-joint as it looks like it had some extra material on one side...I was then thinking that maybe that is the ONLY balanced part in a double cardan setup? If that joint was off balance to either side, wouldn't it throw the entire shaft off?

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Are there no balance weights welded to the tube?

bucket said:

But if the double cardan has a heavy side, it will throw off the shaft balance if it is installed 180* from how it originally was.

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If its a front driveshaft It shouldn't really matter. How often are you doing highway speeds in 4 high?

rpcraft said:

If its a front driveshaft It shouldn't really matter. How often are you doing highway speeds in 4 high?

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When I was still driving mine all the time, that happened very often. Usually all winter. Not engaged in 4 high, but the hubs locked and shaft spinning.

bucket said:

Are there no balance weights welded to the tube?

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There indeed is a weight on the tube...

I'm not opposed to taking it and having both shafts balanced (anyone have any idea how much that should run me?) as I am replacing 5 u-joints in total, a ball joint at the H and I'm also replacing the rear driveshaft yoke. All of the snap rings on the rear shaft quite literally snapped in half when I squeezed them with pliers, along with a section of the outer retaining groove on the yoke.

If I plan on taking the driveshafts to get balanced, does it really matter how they go back together? Also should I walk them in or is it something they need to do on the truck?

I haven't had it done in years, but I think the last time I had a shaft balanced, it was around 60 bucks. I brought the shaft to them.

It looks like the needle bearings locked up and spun the cap in that yoke pic. Man! And I can't imagine how the snap ring lip broke off in that one place. Maybe something hit it? I'd chunk it. It could also be bent to, somehow.