I pulled out yesterday and noticed a few odd noises under my XJ, a few seconds later they got a lot worse & I pulled right over. I looked under the Jeep & my rear driveshaft had fallen off & was banging around.
It was still in the t-case & the rear u-joint looked whole. The clamps were still whole & attached to the rear yoke(?). The caps were gone off of the u-joint, so I looked closer at where the clamps are to hold the caps. One one side there is a little "nub" that looks like it holds the cap in from the outside, on the other side this little piece is missing.
I am assuming that this allowed the cap to come off & the U-joint to come loose enough to come out of the other cap & slide out of the clamps.
So, is this simple to fix? Can I just buy a little "nub" for this? Or what do you think?
That little tab is part of the yoke. Keeps the u-joint from walking in there. I have seen those break before, you can either weld a tab in its place of actually put the u-joint in and put a small tack weld on the cap where it meets the yoke.. Done that on a few oval track cars in the past.
-- Edited by xjjeepthing at 12:06, 2006-05-03
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That part is cast, and that little "nub" is part of the yoke. It's all 1 peice. Personally I'd replace the entire peice, not weld it (or similar), especially since you wheel it....
i'd replace the yoke personally since i have many spares. if you don't have spares i'd put the u joint in there (a greasable one) and tack the cap to the yoke and then regrease it since when u tack it it burns up some of the grease. we do this on axle u-joints all the time cause we wheel stupidly hard and blow u-joint caps off about everytime we go out. i'm guessing you probably need a new u-joint in there too cause the cap probably fell off when it broke.
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75 cherokee, 360v8, th400, np203/np205 doubler, HP d60, 14 bolt