U-Joint Replacement

[quikduk]

Here are some shots of my driveshaft u-joint replacement. They were the original ones and, like a lot of other things, had never seen maintenance other than the original install in/on the chassis/coach. These are very HD u-joints but I was still surprised to see negligible appreciable wear on the roller bearings or cups considering the "abuse"� they had been subjected to.

Anyway, I thought it better to replace them so I can vouch for their state of lubrication and condition.

I first had to air up the coach and get it high enough to roll under.



The job was to then remove the HEAVY shaft from the yokes and clean the remaining area of grease and debris.





Here I am changing out the u-joints.



Here is the final "cleaned up"� installation, correctly lubricated of course.



There was a little improvement in the "smoothness"� but most of the improvement came earlier with the replacement and adjustment thereof of the new air bag leveling valves.

[quikduk]

Here are some shots of my driveshaft u-joint replacement. They were the original ones and, like a lot of other things, had never seen maintenance other than the original install in/on the chassis/coach. These are very HD u-joints but I was still surprised to see negligible appreciable wear on the roller bearings or cups considering the "abuse"� they had been subjected to.

Anyway, I thought it better to replace them so I can vouch for their state of lubrication and condition.

I first had to air up the coach and get it high enough to roll under.



The job was to then remove the HEAVY shaft from the yokes and clean the remaining area of grease and debris.





Here I am changing out the u-joints.



Here is the final "cleaned up"� installation, correctly lubricated of course.



There was a little improvement in the "smoothness"� but most of the improvement came earlier with the replacement and adjustment thereof of the new air bag leveling valves.

[quikduk]

In that last shot, you can see why I need to replace my Bilstein shocks. Some are leaking worse than that. Ordinarily, that might be considered a "weep" and is somewhat normal. I would prefer to have some new shocks though to help smooth out the ride a bit more.

[Tom R]

My 2005 Gulfstream on a Freightliner xc chassis had a serious vibration in the 55 to 65 mph area and was less at other speeds. I had Freightliner service center check it out and he serviced the U joints. This did not fix the problem at all and I returned it to freightliner. It was then determined that the yoke was out of round. The yoke was replaced as well as having the drive shaft balanced. There is now no vibration at all. I don.t know if this applies to your situation but It may help someone.

[quikduk]

The vibration we were experiencing was due to the air bag leveling valves leaking and the ride height not being adjusted correctly.

I fixed that issue and then felt I should fix this one as well. The factory joints may have held up forever but they had almost no lubrication so I felt it was better to go with new and grease them thoroughly.