blown driveshaft u joint

so i was cruising on the freeway, and suddenly there's a loud pop, followed by several bangs under the floorboard of my jeep. my first thought goes to the driveshaft, which turns out to be correct. the u-joint shatered where it connects to the pinion yoke. being an np242, the driveshaft then slide out and bounced around until it came to a rest just off the road. upper end looks fine, but the lower seems be damaged on the yoke. one of the 4 u-joint strap bolts sheared off in the pinion, and that strap is toast. my exhaust also got taken out in the process, and a few dents to the underside of the floorboard were added. with a 3" lift that's less than a year old, could it have caused binding in the u-joint? besides replacing the u-joint and strap/bolt, what might i have to do to get this thing going again? the rear end is a d44, not that it should make a huge differance for this. no, i'm not giving it to one of you guys

pics of the carnage:

ouchhhh

Take a good look at the tcase and make sure it didn't get damaged.

Are you sure it didnt rust off???




Dam, look at that prudy muffler.




X2 on what Kejtar said.

Find a new driveshaft.That one is probably bent ,now.And the pinion seal on the 44 looks to be leaking,vibrations from the bad joint may have taken that out too.
Wayne

is there a differance between the np242 and np231 driveshafts? the slip yoke apears to be undamaged, so i can transfer that if just get a shaft. also, would the d44 driveshaft be differant than the d35?

Doubt the lift did it. It was probably already going bad and the lift exaserbated the issue.

that's what i was thinking, that it wasn't only because of the lift. been working on it, and my pinion yoke is deffiently shot the driveshaft, however, seems ok. so i'm replacing the u-joint, straps, pinion seal, pinion yoke, and t-case output seal.

Drill out the yoke and install u-bolts while your at it so that there will be less of a chance of that happening again.

u-bolts? i've never heard of doing that before. just going over the 2 points of the u-joints?

Sorry, but that joint clearly failed from lack of lubrication....possibly in conjunction with clearance issues between the driveshaft yoke and the pinion yoke caused by driveshaft angle and suspension flex...didn't that thing squeak at low speeds prior to failure???

After you fix it...put it on a lift and check to make sure there is no binding. And get some u-joints that can be greased....and a grease gun, ESPECIALLY if you run in water or mud.

yea as i've worked on it today, i realized how badly it needed lube. i have a grease gun, and the u-joint i have to replace it is greasable from napa. i'm trying to find a pinion yoke, the only place i've found so far is through rusty's off road, buying a crown OEM replacement. oddly enough, i never heard any squeak from the rear end, besides all the interior squeaks.