Driving with one front axle shaft removed ??

I managed to get my front axle ujoint out.....

BUT, Canadian Tire gave me the wrong joint, the bearing cups are 3/16" to small in diameter.

Their computer shows bigger cups for my 96 XJ only if it has ABS. IS there a part number I can cross reference with ?

And,

can i drive the car with the front axle shaft out of the diff or will I lose a load of oil or cause other problems ???

I have no other transport to get back to town to change it. :smsoap:

If you don't keep the short shaft through the unit/wheel bearing, your wheel will fall off.

Yep, I was going to put the short end on and torque up the driveshaft nut.

Throw a rag in there to reduce the loss of gear oil, and you definitely need to put the outer stub shaft in and torque the nut on the unit hub....or you won't make it very far!

96 is the switch over year. People told me that mine should have 260 shafts and a 27 spline 8.25. Well, it had a 29 spline 8.25 and 297 shafts! The spicer joint that you want is a 297, or the stronger (but still fits in the same axle) 760 spicer Ujoint. Tell them to order the exact same Ujoint for a Dana44 front axle.

mozzer said:

Their computer shows bigger cups for my 96 XJ only if it has ABS. IS there a part number I can cross reference with ?

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Get the bigger ones - Crappy Tire is wrong on this. You want to use a 297-x sized u-joint, or preferably even the stronger 760-x. Those are Spicer u-joint numbers, and they should have a cross-reference to that at least.

mjma said:

96 is the switch over year. People told me that mine should have 260 shafts and a 27 spline 8.25. Well, it had a 29 spline 8.25 and 297 shafts! The spicer joint that you want is a 297, or the stronger (but still fits in the same axle) 760 spicer Ujoint. Tell them to order the exact same Ujoint for a Dana44 front axle.

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Corrected this in another thread as well, but that's just not good info and can cause problems for newbies if they search and find it. There were several changes in '96, but the axleshaft u-joint isn't one of them.

Most counter monkeys at Crappy Tire or the US equivalents won't be able to look up a "Dana 44 front axle" without knowing what it goes under.

Jim www.yuccaman.com

Got the 297 version and their part numbers do have the 260 or 297 in them. I asked him to check a later year but that came up the same as said above.

Both years showed the bigger joint only for ABS equipped cars, of course the guy tried to suggest that my Jeep must have ABS and I just hadn't noticed, I put him straight and hopefully that will be one person in one store who might think twice about trusting his wanky computer system in the future.

mozzer said:

Got the 297 version and their part numbers do have the 260 or 297 in them. I asked him to check a later year but that came up the same as said above.

Both years showed the bigger joint only for ABS equipped cars, of course the guy tried to suggest that my Jeep must have ABS and I just hadn't noticed, I put him straight and hopefully that will be one person in one store who might think twice about trusting his wanky computer system in the future.

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Glad you got what you needed; in-store systems are a pain in the butt when they're wrong like that.

http://www.yuccaman.com/jeep/history.html#axles said:

Dana 30 axles with the NP231, 1987 through 1991 are vacuum disconnect
NP242 Selec-Trac will not have the disconnect
All 1992+ are non-disconnect
All 84-88 D30s have 5-260x u-joints (1 1/16" diameter caps)
1989-95 non-ABS have 5-260x u-joints
1989-95 with ABS have 5-297x u-joints (1 3/16" diameter caps)
All 1995 1/2+ have 5-297x u-joints
5-297x u-joints can be replaced with the stronger 5-760x u-joint

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Jim www.yuccaman.com