New U-joints & carrier bearing-wow, what a difference!

[pritch]

I changed out all 3 of my U-joints and carrier bearing yesterday. Wow, what a difference it made! I think I must have kinda gotten used to all the various vibrations that had developed over time and having them all go away at once is huge. Really brings out the inherent smoothness of the straight six

I was dreading changing the carrier bearing, having never done it before, but it was the easiest part. I cut away everything I could with the hi-speed until all that was left was the inner race, and it came off fairly easy with a BFH and cold chisel. I did that first, then took a big 'ol chunk of dry ice and laid it on the shaft and wrapped it up good with some rags while I worked on the u-joint on the other shaft. Once I got those done and took a couple breaks and had a little bit of a melt-down after burning the heck out of my hand with the torch (not really the torch. The torch set my glove on fire-the burning glove is what burned my hand)

At any rate, after several hours of chillin', that new bearing went on easy. I still had to drive it on, but it went on easier than the old one came off. Put it all back together and now I'm ready for years of worry-free motoring. Well, at least drive shaft worries.







I did notice that my seal on my rear end has failed and had slung all the gear lube out. I threw in most of a quart I had here but it still wasn't full. I think I had better get that fixed ASAP, as I have 2 back-to-back 1200 mile road trips planned for June. Truck needs to be ready for that!