Hello friends,

Bad vibration with the wagon. Determined it's a shot U joint in the rear. Reading the Bently manual, they say remove the shaft. My buddy who will be doing the actual work wants to know if anyone has replaced the u-joint without having to entirely remove the shaft. Also, I called IPD, and they told me about the 3 sizes of U joint. Any tips as how to measure the thing in an easy way?

Any helpful hints with replacing the universal joint will be appreciated.

Thanks!
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'73 164E/'76 240SW/80 240SW/89 240SW @315Kmiles!

Thank you all for the helpful information. I have passed it along to my friend who will be working on the car. He has seen a few diagrams of the drive shaft et.al., and he asked me to post this verbatim:

"When the car is up in the air, can I remove the bolts that connect the rear of the drive shaft to the differential and drop the rear portion of the shaft down? From that point will the rear portion of the shaft slide out of the center carrier mount, or is there some other step to getting the rear portion of the shaft to come free from the forward part of the shaft?"

I guess he wants to know if there will be a hitch to what appears to be a simple operation. But we all know when you say the word simple, well, we just want to chack.

Thank you in advance for your help!
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'73 164E/'76 240SW/80 240SW/89 240SW @315Kmiles!

... but mark the rear-to-front "mating" relationship first, so it will be correct when the rear shaft goes back in place.

I don't know how you would even go about replacing a ujoint with the driveshaft still on the car. It is so eay to remove the whole thing, why even bother?

ujoint size is best measure with the driveshaft off the car and a ruler handy :)

I just replaced all 3 U-joints in my driveshaft and I don't know how you'd do it while it is still in the car because the U-joints have to be pressed in with a hydraulic press. Good Luck and if your friend knows a way to do it in the car, please post it here because I'd like to know how as I'm sure they're others here wo'd like to know as well.

you can use a vise to chang the u joints.
you might have a bad carrier bearing or carrier bearing holder.
before you replace the u joints try getting under the car and shaking the driveshaft and checking for play.
one symptom of a badly worn u joint that i've noticed is a click or a snapping sound as you take off from a stop, especially if you're on an uphill grade or turning as you accelerate forward.