front driveshaft mystery
Posted: Mon Aug 10, 2009 8:52 pm
A strange thing has happened to my front propeller shaft on my m38a-1. Here's what it looked like several months ago...
you'll probably notice right off that it was installed backwards....with the slip yoke to the front instead of the rear. You'll probably also notice it was pretty gunked up with grease and grime. I decided to remove it...clean it up.....and put it in the right way. This would also give me an opportunity to check the u-joints for excessive wear.
Everything checked out okay with the u-joints....so I cleaned everything up....took apart the slip yoke...cleaned it up.... and reassembled. Now that I'm ready to reinstall it in the jeep here's the problem. With the slip yoke pulled as far apart as it will go the propeller shaft seems to be about 1/2" too short. I doube seriously that it shank from the cleaning......and since the transfer case/transmission/engine all made up okay and are bolted to the motor mounts and crossmember I don't think its an alignment problem. The only thing that looks to even be a possibility is that the front axle is too far forward. It was removed from the frame but since I used all new hardware to remount everything and made triple sure the spring bolt heads were pocketed in the spring perches I didn't think this would be a problem either. Sooooo......has anyone else run into this situation? Do I just need to pull back on the front axle to get the drive shaft to fit? Is this a product of no loading on the front springs?
Also.....this shaft has the type of slip yoke that uses the crimp on collar to retain the seal. Are the yokes with the screw on caps any longer? Any help here is greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Jim
you'll probably notice right off that it was installed backwards....with the slip yoke to the front instead of the rear. You'll probably also notice it was pretty gunked up with grease and grime. I decided to remove it...clean it up.....and put it in the right way. This would also give me an opportunity to check the u-joints for excessive wear.
Everything checked out okay with the u-joints....so I cleaned everything up....took apart the slip yoke...cleaned it up.... and reassembled. Now that I'm ready to reinstall it in the jeep here's the problem. With the slip yoke pulled as far apart as it will go the propeller shaft seems to be about 1/2" too short. I doube seriously that it shank from the cleaning......and since the transfer case/transmission/engine all made up okay and are bolted to the motor mounts and crossmember I don't think its an alignment problem. The only thing that looks to even be a possibility is that the front axle is too far forward. It was removed from the frame but since I used all new hardware to remount everything and made triple sure the spring bolt heads were pocketed in the spring perches I didn't think this would be a problem either. Sooooo......has anyone else run into this situation? Do I just need to pull back on the front axle to get the drive shaft to fit? Is this a product of no loading on the front springs?
Also.....this shaft has the type of slip yoke that uses the crimp on collar to retain the seal. Are the yokes with the screw on caps any longer? Any help here is greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Jim