Rear End Toast?

Today when i was fixing my yoke on my rear driveshaft with a friend, who happens to be a master mechanic, when we got the yoke off he said holy shit man your rear end is fried! He grabbed the shaft that the yoke screws on to that goes into the rear pumkin and wiggled it around and back and fourth...he said your an accident waiting to happen, your lucky this hasn't locked up on you! Also, he noticed that the leaf spring bolts where loose as hell, i didn't know this...he then said thats what fried your rear end...your axle has been moving around because the leaf spring bolts were loose and now your rear end is gone!!! Just wanting to get some confirmation on this on what you guys think...because getting a new rear end will be $$$$!
Thanks in advance, James

Your so called buddy is screwing you. Once you remove the yoke, the shaft will definately wiggle around. It uses tapered roller bearings. Without the yoke on there, the bearings are free to unload and you can wiggle the pinion so much that the front bearing will pop out. Either he is incompetent, or a cheat.

If it wiggles with the yoke tightened down that is one thing, but with the yoke off, it should be loose. If it is a Dana35, did he measure the rotational torque before removing the yoke? That is the accepted way to do it. My hand is calibrated so I sometimes do it without that step, but only on a beater trail rig.

Sorry for being so blunt, but I have zero tolerance for this kind of thing.

ok i just went in to the garage and checked it...the yoke is on tight because we torqued it pretty good...it WILL move clockwise and counter-clockwise a little then it stops...but it WON'T move in or out like it did when the yoke was off! So is it ok you guys think...should i just bolt the driveshaft up and take it somewhere and have it looked at...he said NOT to drive it!
Thanks, James

o and this guy is not a jeep expert, just a mechanic so he may have just not known this...unless he should have? He also thought my front axle was messed up until i told him about the vacuum disconnect, should he have know about that?

bump

If I were there, the first thing I would do is to drop the driveshaft at the yoke. At that point you should be able to rotate the pinon left and right a few degrees. You should not have any slop side to side or in and out. If you do there is a problem. Otherwise, I would find a quiet place and have someone drive by slowly. Listen. It should be quiet. If you hear any whining, groaning, or grinding, you have a problem. Another thing to do is to have someone hold the brake and put it alternatively in drive and reverse. If you get any loud popping or banging, you most likely have a bad ujoint, but there is a low possibility that the ring and pinion have a problem. If at this point there were no rude noises, I would drive it for a few days, but listen and if it starts acting funny or the rude noises appear, take it to a reputable shop. If it is as bad as your friend says, it should make tons of noise and the ring and pinion would already have been shot, so there is not a lot to risk.

Back to the original issue. Why did you replace the yoke. Did you break it, was it leaking?

sorry i replaced the yoke because one of the little rectangle things on either side of the yoke that holds the u-joint in place broke when the rear u-joint broke, so i replaced the yoke and u-joint.

back to basics first. what rear end is it? no offense to your buddy but I wonder how he became a master mechanic? tell him to get off your foot cause he is pulling your leg a little to hard. knowing what rear end it is will help determine if the yoke was installed right. not just checking pinion bearing preload but replacing the crush collar. its kinda a use once item. Dana 44 is different, it uses shims.

D35 rear

The reason I asked about checking the preload is that you CAN reuse the crush sleeve if you measure the preload first and then when putting it back together set it to 3 inch pounds tighter. The process will work with any axle, crush sleeve or not.

i put the DS on and drove it around...no noises or problems...even better that before it seems...so am i ok?