In the past I have ended up putting little gouges in the yokes,
because I had not been pressing the new cups in 100% straight.
It's hard to avoid if you are not using a good accurate, square
press. Once I had to take a Dremel tool and carefully grind
away some little ridges that were next to the gouges.
In my opinion, the joint will be OK if there is no noticeable
free play or binding of the cups after you get it together. Remember that
the prop shaft joints get only 1/3 or 1/4 the torque of the axle shaft
joints. Plus, if the prop shaft is made out of balance by messed
up joints, it will be very obvious the first time you drive over
45 mph...
Doug Braun
'72 Spit
At 03:46 AM 1/14/01 , Ron Deaver wrote:
>In replacing u-joints on a propeller shaft, what is the criteria for
>determining if your shaft requires replacement? My second attempt to
>remove the old, shot u-joint from my shaft was successful, but I noted that
>the yoke welded to the shaft has some gouges in the bearing cups. One has
>a gouge about 1/16" of an inch deep.
>
>How critical is it for the yoke to be totally smooth and blemish-free? It
>may seem a silly question, but I hate to toss another $200 for a new shaft
>if I can get by ignoring the gouges and putting the new u-joint in
>place. On the other hand, I definitely do not want to piece it together
>and have a failure going down the road.
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