Driveshaft Seperated while driving?

[RJB44]

Hello -

I recently had a friend replace the u-joints on my rear drive shaft on my 1991 Jimmy. I did not drive the truck until the next day, that is when I got about a mile and half down the road from my house when I got this god-awful vibration then the truck started to shutter hard. I pulled over a looked underneath and did not see anything odd. So I put it into drive again a started out slowly, when all of sudden I heard a hard "wrapping" noise, this time I knew it was something big. I got out, looked again underneath, and saw the drive shaft, at the u-joint, separated from the transfer case. The u-joint was loosely sitting in the yoke.

I ended up having the truck flatbed back to my house. My friend said he put the u-joint in correctly, stating it must have been a bad part? I am curious to know what would have caused the u-joint to separate/, I ended replacing both rears the next weekend and can only think maybe it was the C clips were set correctly? I doubt it was a bad part, I think it was not installed correctly.

Feedback Welcome?
RJB44

 

[Hogback Fabrication]

Your friend didn't put it back together correctly.

 

[BGKYK5]

x2.

 

[Thunder]

U joints are pretty much no brainers. They either go in right or they dont. If there is a catastrophic failure like yours and it was the fault of the U joint the proplem should have been ovbious when the joint was installed.
I think you have a bad installer. Mabe forgot to install the c clip(s) and a cap came off

 

[blazinzuk]

There are quite a few things that can go wrong with a u joint but they are usually traced to either a bad yoke or iproper installation, I have put my fair share of u joints in and only have had one fail due to a bad part, driveshaft shop I got it from they have seen it now and again but not very often

 

[sweetk30]

bet bad install my self.

 

[BGKYK5]

The only way it would not be due to a bad u-joint install is if the yoke was trashed before the new joint went in. In that case it is still a bad install since the damaged yoke went unnoticed.