thx drowssap, i'll give her a whirl.

anyone else have issues finding these stainless 3/8"-24 (do i necessarily need 24? they have -16's) Nylon Lock Nuts? Been to a couple Home Depots and Autozones....nothing

 

Be carefull with stainless. A lot isn't even grade 5, which the OE fasteners are.

 

Fastenal should have the nylocks or can get them for you.

 

I went to my local Fastenal store and bought a bag of the nylocks. I had to buy the bag in the store, or such is my memory. I could have bought the right number over the internet, but then would pay shipping. It wound up costing about the same or less to get the whole bag.

 

According to their website, menards has the hardware. Im gonna try there for mine.

 

LOWES carries them in bags of 4

 

so i stopped by Lowes and although they 'stocked' Grade 5 3/8-24 Nylocks, they were out (go figure). Got home and decided to pull the prop apart and HOLY pain in the ***. A few tips if you decide to attempt this....make sure you pull the zerks (nipples) before you use a Ujoint removal tool or else you'll snap them off. This is ok if you're pulling off old joints but not if you're removing new ones to get to the centering ball. In addition, you'll need a flat head to try to pry the caps out from the 'inside out'. When i finally got it out, i noticed that the seal around the centering ball was cracked. any way to fix this or should i just buy an entirely new drive shaft? Again, what a pain in the ***. If i were to buy a new one, are these old rebuildable shafts worth anything?

 

I read you can buy that seal there was a post on that yesterday, I think it was pinkytoe's post. Now you know why your friend did not change the centering ball.

 

The bearing caps?