Bill,
I will add my vote to those who say to hire someone to do it. I did it myself
after watching my friend Rick Patton do it. I would tell you to send it to him
and have him do it but I dont think you want to send your parts to the opposite
coast and I dont think Rick would talk to me if I did. He has had some
experience doing these but he also has a knack for it. I watched him do one
and thought, "hey, that wasnt too bad." Then I did the other 4 that needed to
be done. He took less than 15 minutes. 4 hours later I thought I finished the
last one only to discover I had forgotten to finish off the last U-joint. I
found that some of mine went together quite quickly and easily and the
others...well, I am not sure where the time went. Of course it didnt help
losing the needle bearing on the floor. Rick was kind enough to let me use the
press in his autoparts store to press the U-joints apart and then use the vice
to press them together. If at all possible I would avoid using a hammer in the
process since it is all too easy to have one of the needle bearings fall over
in the cap and therefore have to start the process all over again.
Now, having said all of that I must be a sucker for punishment since I actually
enjoyed the feeling of accomplishment after I finished. And you cant tell the
condition of the U-joints by looking at them. Some of the ones I took apart
looked great but were in horrible condition. If it were me, I would replace
all of them if I were unsure of the condition or how long they had been on the
car.
AaronSnowing again(still?) in Topsham, Maine
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