U-Joint

I had a 1975 Chevy Nova that was real hard on U-Joints. It had a 250 engine and auto 3-speed. Could only get 3-4 thousand miles on a set of U-Joints before one or the other would upchuck. Got so peeO'd that once I took the driveshaft in to a garage and had them replace the U-Joints to no avail.

Sold the sucker before I ever did find out what was up.

-- Regards Gordie

Sounds like improper rear U-Joint angle. Can be caused by,bad motor mount,bad trans mount,bad rear spring eye bushings,bad alignment pin in the leaf spring,bent drive shaft,bad rear yoke,bad spring shackles,bad rear springs. If this is a lifted/lowered truck then you tossed in a bunch more like, incorrect spacer installation, incorrect mounting of lift kit components.

It all comes down to the wrong rear yoke angle. Front and rear have to be within a degree or two to keep the joints alive. Here is another question, what have/had you done to the truck before the first on popped, anything? Any strange behavior before they started going bad? Also are you using the same brand each time? from the same store? maybe they have a batch of defective ones?

What is different from the stock configuration? I've got 115k on my original U-joints. Mike

I had to replace mine a month ago(back 2 only, front 1 was fine) and from what I saw may need to again.. My 96 Sonoma has a "Floating Drive Shaft". It's supposed to be better but I think it sucks and I wonder if its the same thing causing yours to eat U-joints. The problem I see in the design is that the rear-ujoint assembly is a double u-joing with a ball-joint between them. The ball-joint thing had no greese fitting. This means there is an extra potential for kinking and shaking, and nocking (imho). I took it apart (via hammer - I've done this many times without need to reballance). And hammered in new ones - and it was fine for a while (smooth to 90mph - as fast as I've gone in it). Lately I've been hearing a little noise that sounds like the ball-joint thing vibrating when hard-accelerating. I just got home from 400mi (each way) trip where I got a 21' boat. The long pull home had lots of shake/rattle noise that seemed mostly from the trailer and hitch, but I won't be too surprised if I need to change ujoints again. Anyone know about this ball-joint? How to repack it? How to put a greese fitting onto it? Nylon pads? Elliott Floating Shaft: Rear_End_Flange--u_joint--ball_joint--u_joint--------shaft-------------u_joint---coupler

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