Rear Prop (UJ I think

[Chris Green90]

Not sure I thats what it called But here goes I am sure one of you will put me right. Its the Joint that bolts the rear prop to the rear diff. There seems to be alot of play in it. Should there be any at all or should it be quite loose. My gear changes seem to have been getting a little clunky recently and whilst under the truck this morning I noticed that there was about an inch of play in each direction at that joint. Is this about right? Too much?? Too little??? andd if so is the part replaceable or is it a full prop. It is on a sliding splined joint at the prop end which will come out but I have not seen it as a replacement part at for instance Milners.

Any thoughts???

Chris

 

[OG.]

The way to test a UJ on vehicle is as follows.
Chock the wheels and put the vehicle in neutral. If it has a transmission brake (Land Rovers for example) leave the handbrake off.
Crawl under the vehicle and look at the joint. It will have a cross shaped centre piece. Try to move the propshaft in the direction of each arm of the cross.
e.g. if the cross is pointing with the arms vertically and horizontally try to move the propshaft in those directions.
There should ideally be no movement though up to around 1.5mm is acceptable.
Rotational slack will not usually be the propshaft UJs (If it is the previous test should pick that up). There will always be some movement rotationally of the prop. Yours doesn't sound all that excessive (though I personally would like to see less).

 

[majic79]

an inch of play? that's massive!

a mm of play might be acceptable (but I can't think of a reason it would have more than noticeable play!)

Usually it's bearings in the spider that need replacing - milners do them: http://www.milneroffroad.com/toyota...ansmission/kzj95-propshaft-universal-joint-uj

You pop the prop off, remove the retaining circlips and pop the spider out with a suitable press, fit new spider and push in new bearing caps, fit retaining circlips, job done - did this to my mates trooper in about 15 minutes (after he'd done the legwork pulling the prop off)

 

[OG.]

For suitable press also see large hammer and old sockets of correct size

 

[AndyCook]

is the inch of play not just slack in the diff?

you need to hold each side of the u-joint separately with a different hand and twist turn to see if there is any slack, otherwise you are just seeing slack in other transmission components like the diff as well

 

[BobMurphy]

is the inch of play not just slack in the diff?

I think Andy's right . . I once left a worn UJ on a Morris Marina for too long and all the needle rollers jumped out you would certainly know all about it if you had an inch of play in the UJ .

However, if you do need to replace the UJ 'spider joint' here's a write-up I prepared earlier . . . .


http://www.tlocuk.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=7778&highlight=replacing+propshaft


Good luck with it.

Bob.

 

[Ben]

If you havnt got access to a press, and dont fancy hammering them out.

Then a vice and a couple of sockets works well.

Personally I don't think I'd want to hammer them out/apart.

 

[majic79]

hammering them apart is ok - just don't hammer them together, a press or a vice is the right tool for this job

 

[Ben]

That said I've not actually changed one before, so dont know how tight they are to get apart.

Maybe a light tap and they separate.

 

[AndyCook]

ive used the hammer and socket method - its not ideal, more a field-repair option

it works to get the UJ spider out - they can be very difficult to extract, but i damaged a new milners UJ fitting it with the hammer method , luckily i had bought a few of them. but the milners UJ i have fitted seem to show play after 1 year. i have a couple genuine toyota ones to fit at somepoint to replace the milners ones i fitted

i have used the vice method too, but now have a 10t press for this sort of job

 

[BobMurphy]

The bearing caps came out (and the new ones went in) quite easily. The 2.5lb mash hammer just needed a tap.

If you use a small hammer you can end up whacking dents in the caps, a large one has the mass to shift everything without too much localised damage.

As I recall, the new caps were just pushed in by hand (once everything was clean and greased).


Bob.

 

[tim falce]

If there's an inch of play I would expect one or both yokes to be fubar as well.

 

[Chris Green90]

Well guys I have replaced it today. The 2 Bearing caps on the Transfer box end of the Shaft were totally shot to pieces. The Yokes themselves look to be in excellent condition. Not too bad a job to do really but I have snapped the inch thick back plate on my vice as I don't have a press. Oh well, A good excuse to ask SWMBO to release the funds for some new tools. lol,
Took a couple of pics to show you how bad it was but not sure how well they came out. I will pop them up later.

 

[sae70]

Sorry I'm a tad late to this thread, but I did mine last year with not more than a socket and a big hammer and it was a breeze with enough GT85 and some fine wet & dry

Heres a link to the thread I did with a few photos http://www.landcruiserclub.net/foru...ew-universal-joint-BUT?highlight=Milners+play

 

[Chris Green90]

AS Promised piccies

Not sure if you can see that the cap has actually split. Both sides.

This is prob the best pic

 

[Steve Wright]

Well I can see the reason for the fail ! NO Grease

so the morel to this story is "Make sure your Nipples are Greased"

 

[AndyCook]

wow that looks completely knackered
yep - bone dry

you had better grease the other UJ and sliding yokes incase they are similar

 

[ModelMakerMan]

Have those nipples EVER seen a grease gun!?

 

[fridayman]

That looks pretty bad. I'm surprised that you weren't getting really bad vibrations for a while already.

 

[J66P]

he will have had his tunes playing, thinking the bass was rocking