After spending a couple nights gettings the all the U joints disassembled I'm getting ready to put new ones on and put the shaft back together. I have done the forum search and read most of the related posts but I still have a question. For the middle U joint I had all 4 caps off before I could remove the double cardon side from the shaft. But in Kevin Liu's write up he had the new middle U joint re-assembled onto the shaft WITH CAPS ON first before putting the double cardon side on. It seems counterintuitive. Can someone who has experience with the rebuilt shed some light on this? Thanks!

 

leave the trunion caps off until after you slide the post into the center ball ( taking care that you do not knock down any needle bearings). This may take an extra set of hands or a vise to hold the drive shaft.

 

Alan, are you planning on replacing the centering ball, if not you had better or all that effort will be for not when it fails and your tranny goes south.

 

Thanks for the heads up Mike. And yes my plan is to replace the centering ball at the same time.
So I should leave all the caps off the middle U joint when assembling the double cardon onto the shaft?

 

I just did my shaft. I worked my way from front to back (easiest to harder). The top was the only tricky one IMHO. I had to use a couple of zip ties to hold pressure against the centering bearing spring and grease. I fought that spring for a little while befor I thought of the zip ties.

 

Thanks d2luvr. Did you leave all 4 caps off the middle U joint when you assemble the double cardon onto the shaft? Or were you able to do that with the middle U joint fully assembled onto the shaft with the 2 caps on?

 

Work from the centering ball out. First four caps on the double cardon carrier, the last four caps attaching the driveshaft(2 caps) and yoke flange(2 caps).

 

Thanks Palmetto. I put the front u joint on last night. Now I believe I have a fairly good idea on how to tackle the "fun" side of the shaft.