First off, I would like to thank everyone who participates in helping others solve their problems. If it weren't for you, I would have never attempted this U-Joint change on my own. Now on to the good stuff...
I am an extreme novice at auto repair, so I was skeptical on changing out the u-joints. The most I’ve ever done with a vehicle is oil changes. I have since done a transmission fluid change, rear diff change, and plugs, and now u-joints. I’m on my way.
I read about many people having similar problems, and the problem always seems to float around checking the u-joints. I purchased a boat a few months ago, and then started to notice a vibration and knocking under heavier acceleration. Once I would gain enough speed, the knocking would stop. It was not coming from the engine, more like the back end. I tried lubing everything back there, to no success. Finally after reading all this information here, I decided to put the truck on a jack and spin the tires. Once I did that, I immediately noticed, the rear u-joint was very loose.
Long story short, a $13 U-joint solved the problem. It was extremely easy to change. I chock it up to a 4 on a difficulty scale with 10 being the toughest. The driveshaft only weighs about 10-15lbs, so that was super easy to lower once disconnected from the rear. The hardest part was banging out the old caps and even that was easy.
I found some useful pictures at this website, it was very similar.
http://dodgeram.org/tech/repair/U_joint/repair.htm
Anyway, I included a few after shots of what my bad u-joint looked like. You can see how the one side is nice and centered, while the other is wearing on the one side. There was a crack in one of the caps, and all of the needles were gone on 2 caps, and bone dry. The other two were ok. I'm sure in a short time, I would be sitting on the highway with the driveshaft on the ground.
Good Luck to all novices!
I am an extreme novice at auto repair, so I was skeptical on changing out the u-joints. The most I’ve ever done with a vehicle is oil changes. I have since done a transmission fluid change, rear diff change, and plugs, and now u-joints. I’m on my way.
I read about many people having similar problems, and the problem always seems to float around checking the u-joints. I purchased a boat a few months ago, and then started to notice a vibration and knocking under heavier acceleration. Once I would gain enough speed, the knocking would stop. It was not coming from the engine, more like the back end. I tried lubing everything back there, to no success. Finally after reading all this information here, I decided to put the truck on a jack and spin the tires. Once I did that, I immediately noticed, the rear u-joint was very loose.
Long story short, a $13 U-joint solved the problem. It was extremely easy to change. I chock it up to a 4 on a difficulty scale with 10 being the toughest. The driveshaft only weighs about 10-15lbs, so that was super easy to lower once disconnected from the rear. The hardest part was banging out the old caps and even that was easy.
I found some useful pictures at this website, it was very similar.
http://dodgeram.org/tech/repair/U_joint/repair.htm
Anyway, I included a few after shots of what my bad u-joint looked like. You can see how the one side is nice and centered, while the other is wearing on the one side. There was a crack in one of the caps, and all of the needles were gone on 2 caps, and bone dry. The other two were ok. I'm sure in a short time, I would be sitting on the highway with the driveshaft on the ground.
Good Luck to all novices!
