Front axle U-Joints

[jelag]

I was heading to the beach about 10 days ago when I felt the jump in the wheel when turning that leads you to front u-joints....

Upon my return I spent the better part of a day taking the blasted truck apart to get the axles out.... 05, 80K miles...

The problem of course is the rust on the bearing housing that bolts to the axle...

I finally got the drivers side apart... the passenger side was easier...

Both joints had cups that were dust... and replaced them..

I spent some time with a flapper wheel, on all the metal to metal connections and gave the parts a liberal coating of anti-seize and was very surprised at how the truck went back together in about a 1/4 of the time it took to take it apart...

I was able to press apart the bearing housing and clean an inspect the bearings... and repacked them with a coating of high pressure, high temperature bearing grease we use on clutch bearings..

Got it all back together and it seems to run fine.... what I guess is the surprise is that we have 2 other trucks with much higher mileage on them and they are still fine....

I also now understand the trick of greasing the bearings, but didn't understand that to do this on a 3500 you need to have the wheel adapter off and the rotor off... so the next time the other trucks are apart they will get the bearings greased as well.

Frankly because of the rust holding the parts together, this is one of the worst jobs I've done on our trucks.... however for a total cost of less than $65 for the joints, and another $18 for a dust shield that I damaged when I took the drivers side apart, I'm very pleased... Don't have a clue what this would have cost at the dealer...

I would have never tried this job with out a hoist to lift the truck and allow access under the truck.... working on this with floor jacks would have been very miserable...