Drive shaft spline repair?

98 XJ, 5.3L, 6.5" lift, SYE, etc.
I seem to blow through drive shafts like nobodies business. The splined section always wears out after a few months and of course causes some mad driveline vibes.

I just recently finished my 5.3 swap, and thought that because of the now automatic transmission, that my axle wrap was actually better due to less shock loading from the manual. Nope...

Haven't really been hitting the Jeep too hard since the 5.3 got finished, mainly because I'm still testing it's capabilities and finding weaknesses. That said, started getting mad vibes the other day, which then went away on their own. I had some vibes around 80km/h, but they were mild and would go away above 90km, but the other day I parked the truck (probably after doing an "i made it home in one piece again!" victory burnout on the driveway, and the next time I took it out, it was shaking horribly.
Took a look and sure enough, the pinion side of the u-joint was smoking hot after a short drive, and the caps were both cracked on the DS side. joint had also broke off the side tab on the yoke, and there was clear rubbing between the DS yoke and the pinion yoke that could only have happened due to extreme axle wrap. The axle must have been binding so hard that it forced the caps to split and partially melt during the last drive.

That said, the splined section of course, is worn right out as well and I think this is probably my 5th rear DS on the Jeep in as many years.

First question. - So, I know the yoke and spline are both replaceable, but I've heard that the yoke side is actually supposed to be a wearable item, and that the external splines are machined a bit bigger than the internal, and during assembly they injection mould some composite into the splines to take up the space. Is this generally true of all DS's, and does the internal side usually survive? Should I just be grabbing a new DS yoke (external spline) and dropping it on and expect it to be tight again?

Second question. - Does axle wrap usually cause the splined section to wear out real quick? If this is actually the cause of my constantly having to replace DS's, I'll just 4 link it or build some ladder bars in the short term.

I'd bet they yoke contact side loaded the splined section and caused the wear.

Fix the axle wrap, get a new driveshaft with good splines and new u-joints, new pinion yoke (might check pinion bearings too), and go from there.

rotating equipment needs to be *tight*

It costs money to do victory burnouts

XJ_ranger said:

I'd bet they yoke contact side loaded the splined section and caused the wear.

Fix the axle wrap, get a new driveshaft with good splines and new u-joints, new pinion yoke (might check pinion bearings too), and go from there.

rotating equipment needs to be *tight*

It costs money to do victory burnouts

Click to expand...

Yea. So called a driveline shop I trust, and he said the same thing you said and I was thinking. The splined section wears out because the DS is essentially acting as a ladder bar . The male end of the splines is unfortunately, the one with the injected plastic (usually) so have to replace both the male and female ends. This of course, is a $100 issue in the US, and a $350 issue here. *sigh*. I can get a new DS for less than fixing this one.

That said, I'm not sure which direction I should go to fix this. I'll be getting one of my MANY DS's fixed today/tomorrow, but I really won't be able to drive proper until I address the axle wrap. It makes sense to me that the 5.3L with 4.56 gears and 35" shoes will blow out a DS cause axle wrap, but I blew out 4 more DS's with the 4.0L on 31's and 33's. I'm starting to wonder if my leafs are just junk.

Anyone got any experience with a 5.3L powered Jeep on 35's? Will a really good set of military wrap leafs solve the wrap enough, or will I still need a ladder bar either way?
The other option of course is to just take this as an omen that it's time to 4-link the rear. I can probably whip up a triangulated 4-link over the weekend for under $300, but of course, then I'd have to completely rebuild my brand new 3" exhaust (throw out everything and start all over from the downpipe back), as well as find some coil overs and throw out my brand new rear shocks .
Ya know, stuff I've been planning on doing eventually, but I really didn't want to build a 4 link for the puny D44. Was waiting to upgrade to tonnes before I bothered.

So, really expensive leafs (suggestions and experience?), ladder bar, combination of the two, or 4-link?

P.S. Also considering building a cheap bam-bar just to get me by until I decide which direction to go. bam bar could be fabbed up in an hour or two and I've probably got enough scrap to get it done for free.

Edit: hahahaha, yea, screw fixing the current DS. $350 to respline and balance, and that's with an S type spline, or just order a brand new custom shaft from TomWoods, with an X spline, for under $260 shipped. Goddamn Canada. We're all rapists. Don't come here.

blistovmhz said:

Yea. So called a driveline shop I trust, and he said the same thing you said and I was thinking. The splined section wears out because the DS is essentially acting as a ladder bar . The male end of the splines is unfortunately, the one with the injected plastic (usually) so have to replace both the male and female ends. This of course, is a $100 issue in the US, and a $350 issue here. *sigh*. I can get a new DS for less than fixing this one.

That said, I'm not sure which direction I should go to fix this. I'll be getting one of my MANY DS's fixed today/tomorrow, but I really won't be able to drive proper until I address the axle wrap. It makes sense to me that the 5.3L with 4.56 gears and 35" shoes will blow out a DS cause axle wrap, but I blew out 4 more DS's with the 4.0L on 31's and 33's. I'm starting to wonder if my leafs are just junk.

Anyone got any experience with a 5.3L powered Jeep on 35's? Will a really good set of military wrap leafs solve the wrap enough, or will I still need a ladder bar either way?
The other option of course is to just take this as an omen that it's time to 4-link the rear. I can probably whip up a triangulated 4-link over the weekend for under $300, but of course, then I'd have to completely rebuild my brand new 3" exhaust (throw out everything and start all over from the downpipe back), as well as find some coil overs and throw out my brand new rear shocks .
Ya know, stuff I've been planning on doing eventually, but I really didn't want to build a 4 link for the puny D44. Was waiting to upgrade to tonnes before I bothered.

So, really expensive leafs (suggestions and experience?), ladder bar, combination of the two, or 4-link?

P.S. Also considering building a cheap bam-bar just to get me by until I decide which direction to go. bam bar could be fabbed up in an hour or two and I've probably got enough scrap to get it done for free.

Edit: hahahaha, yea, screw fixing the current DS. $350 to respline and balance, and that's with an S type spline, or just order a brand new custom shaft from TomWoods, with an X spline, for under $260 shipped. Goddamn Canada. We're all rapists. Don't come here.

Click to expand...

That is sig.-worthy right there.

arty:

Seriously, businesses here are nuts. I know damned well what they pay for the products they re-sell as I own a business as well.
Very generally, if I want a 1310 u-joint, I'm looking at $50 for some no-name Chinese garbage that lasts almost as long as it takes to install (I'm not exaggerating here. I've had shitty Lordco/Napa u-joints crack during installation). Worse, they usually don't have the part you need and have to order it from their warehouse, which can take a week.
Or ya know, just hit up ANY US vendor for a $10 spicer with free overnight shipping.

Our shops and suppliers generally only carry the absolute worst quality products and charge between 3 and 10x more for them than a good quality part out of the US, shipped to my door in two days. As I just finished my 5.3 swap, it's a good example. The motor/trans I got for cheap through a fellow Jeeper. I priced out everything I needed for the swap from both all Canadian vendors as well as all American vendors. Canadian price was around $8500 and I'd be waiting for 2-3 months for everything to arrive. American price was $1200 and I got it all in about a week.

Every time I'm screwed and really need a part right Meow, I end up going to Lordco or Napa just in case (they don't have websites with a product list or prices so you actually have to physically walk into the store and deal with someone who knows absolutely nothing about cars for 30 minutes before they give you something you didn't ask for). And in every case, either they only have the crappest part in the world for 5-10x the price of the best (american sourced), or they give me the wrong part and argue with me that it must be right and i must not know what model vehicle I drive, or they have to order it from their warehouse and it'll be 3 weeks. Hell, my roomie didn't listen and bought wheel studs for his Ford D44 axle. They gave him the wrong ones and charged him something like $8 a piece. Returned and they got the right ones, but half of them broke either during installation or the first time we had to take the wheels off. omg don't let me rant about the state of Canadian business...

Okay, so I spent a good 30 minutes under the Jeep just now, trying to figure out how I could fit a 4-link under there. Summation - I can't.
The 3" exhaust really can't go anywhere out of the way. Right now it's as tucked into the frame rail as it's going to get, and there's no chance of sneaking an upper arm in there. The only option I can think of is to notch the frame rail somewhere near the front and run the exhaust on the outside of the rail, but that just isn't going to happen. This is a street legal beast, and even if I got the exhaust on the outside, there would never be room for a muffler (at least not one that would let me sneak past the five-oh).

So, my options are:
1. Leaf springs (the expensive kind). Will a really good leaf deal with the torque of a 5.3, 4.56 gears, and 35" shoes? Bear in mind, my motor still hasn't been tuned and still running the stock cam. This won't last long. I expect to be making around 300whp by the time I'm done with the motor. Maybe more if I end up with tonnes.
2. Leaf springs (the expensive kind) + a ladder bar (or two). I guess if the above would work, this would work better. If the above isn't enough, perhaps this would? I've got enough room for a beefy ladder on the driver side, and I could probably sneak another one in on the passenger side as well if it ended up being necessary. I figure one should be enough though, given I truss both tubes together with the pumpkin.
3. 3-link. If I've got room for ladder bars, I of course have room for a 3-link. I hate 3-link and I don't trust it, but I know guys with much bigger rigs than mine run them without problems. Would essentially look almost exactly like the ladder bars, but with more cutting up of the wheel well to fit coil-overs.

Thing is, I hate to do two ladder bars and at the end of the day, I'm looking at my Jeep and I'm all "wtf, that's almost a 4-link. what a rip off having those ugly leafs sitting in there".

What's your thoughts on this? If good leafs can solve the problem, anyone got recommendations for a pack that'll give me 6.5" with a rear tire carrier, and still perform well? I may just have a bias against leafs as I've never seen them do a fantastic job, but I know there are guys out there with far more experience than I, who don't see the point in 4-linking.

Most of the recent builds from Adv. Fab run something like this from RuffStuff:

http://www.ruffstuffspecialties.com/catalog/AWKIT.html

They all pretty much built their own but I don't feel like going through hundreds of pages of build thread to find it again. See Boostwerks, Ross's Jeep (foxwar), and Project Geosynchronous Orbit (MoparManiac)

I'm sure that the Team Naxja 4643 XJ gets more abuse than your heep. Maybe use what they have? If you 4-link the rear consider coilovers, as you have more options. More bracing and at least a rear cage would be involved though. Maybe buy/read the book Eric's XJ wrote. OR look through his build thread/ask him questions.

Ive been very happy wit my 5.5" deaver jeepspeed leafs
Shackle reloacators, and longer shackles will get you up to 6.5"