U-Joint loose side to side in yoke and under straps

I have a 97 cherokee sport 4wd 4.0L automatic. I found if I grab the driveshaft i can slide the u-joint side to side in the yoke between the two tabs designed to keep the caps on the u-joint and the 2 straps designed to hold the u-joint to the yoke must be slightly wollered out. Even if I get new straps and a new u-joint though the width from the end of one cap to another is not big enough to fill the distance between the tangs on the yoke so I am concerned this will occur again down the road. Has anyone run into this before? Is the wrong u-joint installed or something? Also can I put a u-bolt style strap on this instead of the normal strap?

This happened on my dad's YJ. The straps loosen up over time and the u-joints slides back and forth. This causes the tabs to wear (that hold the u-joints side-to-side) or even break off. Yo might be lucky enough to put on new straps and see if it solves the problem. If not, you have to replace the yoke. If you do have to replace it, get one of the u-bolt style yokes.

Replace the yoke now. Drive shafts rotate at pretty high speeds. Can you imagine the driveshaft coming loose somewhere under your privates?

So there were 2 different yoke styles for the 8.25? I cant imagine these tabs on the yoke "wearing" as the yoke is cast and they should likely just crack off if anything.

kstacoma said:

So there were 2 different yoke styles for the 8.25? I cant imagine these tabs on the yoke "wearing" as the yoke is cast and they should likely just crack off if anything.

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No, they definitely wear. Once the straps are deformed enough not to properly load the bearing cap, the cap is allowed to spin in the yoke saddle which will wear on the tabs on the end. Very common once the straps stretch out a little bit....