Ok, doing a prop shaft rebuild with Neapco 1-0005's. I am putting in the first u-joint on the double cardan side.

I got both caps in till they were about flush. Joint rotated smoothly. Pushed one cap in till the circlip would fit. Joint rotated smoothly. Pushed other side in a little more, and the press seemed to be giving a bit too much resistance. Took it out and tried the circlip...would not go in yet. Tried rotating the joint, and it was movable, but very tight.

Could I have done something wrong or are these joints too big??

 

Maybe one of the bearings fell over.

 

Yeah, that thought popped into my head soon after posting.

I guess Ill push it out and see what happens.

 

That has happened to me. Then you have to go back to Advance Auto and buy another one. You have to hope it's a different guy at the counter. The one I screwed up was when I was working on the garage floor. If you have a good work bench surface, everything seems to work better. I have a nice big work bench with a lot of surface area and nice vises for metalwork and for woodwork. I even have a good pipe vise that belonged to my grandfather when he owned an awning company. If it didn't collect so much stuff, I could actually use it. Squatting to work on the garage floor makes you uncomfortable and makes you hurry through things that are better done deliberately.

 

At least it was only $13.

Is it definitely not usable now?

 

Depends what it looks like I suppose. Put it at the non-DC end maybe?

If it looks or feels rough or binds up I wouldn't use it. Otherwise I'd probably chance it. I doubt it would cause a catastrophic failure immediately. It would probably just wear out faster.

 

The trick is to smear some grease inside the needle bearings to hold them in place (the assembly grease doesn't hold them as well). Install one cap, make sure the bearings are in place, then insert the u-joint. Push the other cap in by hand then move the u-joint carefully from the other cap to the one you just put in to make sure the bearings are in place, then move it back part way in to the other one so it's inside the bearings in both caps. This will hold them all in place and you can then finish pressing in the second cap.

 

Yeah, I gave the assembly grease too much responsibility. I also did some cap install with light hammer strikes...gonna use the ball press exclusively for the second attempt.

 

Gonna vent here real quick.

Got the shaft side joint done. Needle bearings were all where they were supposed to be. Was really careful with the increments as I got the clips to fit. Second time around there seemed to be a little more leeway to get both caps in.

Getting the middle piece on was a breeze.

Have tried the one in the little centering ball piece twice now. Cant get the caps low enough to fit the clips without binding the joint. Its like you have to be accurate to the thousandth of an inch or something.

Try again tomorrow...

 

Be sure to clean the snap ring grooves well with a pick or fine Dremel wire brush.
Get the snap rings in then give each yoke a solid whack with a brass or plastic faced hammer. That will release any bind.