Greetings from SoCal,

My '89 760T has had driveline shudder on accelleration for about two months and I want to cure it. I have an ipd catalog and will make a "jig" out of cardboard in order to accurately measure the size of each u-joint. I'll be buying a complete center bearing kit with new rubber, spring and cup washer and all new flange bolts.

I know that I must mark the driveshaft flanges and reassemble exactly as they were before to maintain balance.

My questions:

1. What's the best way to jack the car for this repair? I have a 3 ton floor jack and two 4 ton jackstands. Is is acceptable to raise one side of the car?
If the side approach is not good, is front or back better?

2. Will I need a press for the center bearing or is it possible to remove and replace the center bearing without one? I know AutoZone loans various types of pullers.

3. Any time estimates for any "first timers"?

Any suggestions or words of wisdom are much appreciated.

Stormie - '89 760T (238,000 miles) + '88 240DL (427,600 miles)

Jacking up from one side is fine, I do it all the time. Use jack stands and mark the yokes and flanges before you separate them. U joints can be a pain to remove a press is sometimes very handy, a large vice is also useful. You can use socketts as drifts to push the joint caps from side to side in the yoke. Be very careful installing the new caps to be sure the needle bearings don't shift around. Take an old U joint with you to Auto Zone, the ones they had listed for my 89 745 Turbo were too wide and I had to return them. They did not have the correct ones in stock, I ended up going to NAPA. I would do the U joints first they are probably the culprit, not the center support bearing.

Any chance this is just the old shim-the-center-bearing fix required? Spelled out in a Volvo technical service bulletin, you have to shim the center bearing up or down a bit (up to 5/8" or so) with washers to better align the driveshaft. One direction involves washers between the bearing and the bracket while the other needs washers between the bracket and the body. Something like that. This sure took car of a driveline knock on acceleration in my 780 but it has been about 5 years since I did it. I remember the only fix was by trial and error. Sure saved me the cost of baring and u-joints.