aftermarket U-JOINTS?

[nwcatman]

i posted recently about a new noise my truck is making. now, the noise has tuned into a vibration along w/the noise at all speeds and getting worse by the mile, leading me to believe it is u-joints. will take it to the dealer sat. for warranty work, but i have heard that the OEM u-joints are crap and theres much better ones available. any suggestions?? thanks

 

[COSEng]

May as well get them replaced for free if you are under 36,000. If not, it is cheaper (about $30 each) to just go to NAPA and get some Precision 351's to put in. These are

greasable and should last quite a while... ...



Carl

 

[nwcatman]

May as well get them replaced for free if you are under 36,000. If not, it is cheaper (about $30 each) to just go to NAPA and get some Precision 351's to put in. These are

greasable and should last quite a while... ...



Carl

thanks for the infor. on the NAPAS. but why 36,000? isn't the drivetrain warranty for 75,000?

 

[COSEng]

After 36,000 I think threre is a $50. 00 deductable. I could be wrong. Anyone else?

 

[DPKetchum]

Drivetrain is 70 thousand.

 

[Garry Verheyden]

I would recommend having the driveshafts balanced while you are at it. I just did my dads 03 and my 03. They had the weights welded on in the wrong place and they were totally out of balance from factory. I went through two U-joints in 10,000 miles. The first one was replaced under warranty, but when it failed again I replaced it with a greasable one and had the shafts checked for balance and warpage. It costed $25 Canadian for the U-joint(Chrysler wanted $93 for their non greasable crap) The balancing for the two piece shaft was less than $100. I would guess that the excess vibration from the out of balance driveshafts helped cause the U-joints to fail earlier.



Garry

 

[nwcatman]

thanks guys !!

 

[jelag]

Remember that if you have the shaft apart... to marriage mark all parts so that you can assemble it back into the same positions as it came apart... once the joints are replaced have it balanced...



Jim

 

[Tim]

I have never heard of balancing a shaft just because you replaced the u joints. If balancing is required it's because Dodge didn't do it correctly, or the weights fell off, not because the joints were replaced.



Now if there's a factory problem--sure. I'd suspect there is with the vibration issues I've heard of, especially when fixing angles doesn't take the vibes away. Don't think this is typical though--I've seen driveshafts 40 years old that still ran as smooth as day one.

 

[DPKetchum]

Well heres my opinion on this. I've never come across a factory shaft out of balance. I've sent maybe a dozen NEW shafts out to be balanced to correct drone/boon noise in Cadillac Broughams rwd and they all came back WITH a vibration and ended up replacing with NEW shafts that finally repaired them. Same on Nissan trucks. Now I'v had shafts custom made and shortened etc. and thay all were ok. I've seen shafts (old ones)were the weights had fallen off etc. and NO vibration etc. I think the DODGE trucks with the vibration is probably a combonation of HARMONICS and wrap up at certain speeds that maybe no one thing fixes. That was the case with Cadillac rwd. There was 27 pages of TSB on it and no one thing fixed two in a row and some never got repaired. Angles,balancing,exhaust etc. Nissan long bed trucks had a similiar deal for SEVERAL model years. Old Chevy/Gmc trucks(early 70s to mid,late 70s L/Bs had a similiar deal also. Cadillac finaly told me NOT to attempt a repair on any DONE/BOOM issue period and just to tell owner auto would be bought back. Said it cost too much to ATTEMPT repair and lots of them to no avail. Nissan just said its THE WAY IT IS and do not attempt a repair period. I warned a NEIGHBOR of this REPEATLY and HE bought one and after a few thousand miles came unglued. It cost me a friendship. But I told him up front they did it and would forever with no undo harm and he assured me it was not a issue and he understood. OH WELL. He finally moved thank goodness! Some folkes never mentioned it and theirs did it it also.