My '90 was making a whining sound driving down the road, got louder whenever I turned, the sharper turn the louder the whine. I pulled the front right wheel hub, bearing was good, pulled the axle, ujoint is shot. I pulled the front left wheel hub, bearing was shot, axle ujoint is good. I have access to a shop with a 20 ton hyd press plus large vises, hammers etc.. I pulled the c clips off the inside of the ujoint but cannot get that thing to move, not one bit. The press makes no difference at all. Any ideas? I just might take it in to my local guy and have him put my new greasable ujoints in. Oh and I should mention that I've done probably 20 ujoints before so it's not completely new to me. Thanks.

 

UPDATE: I finally got it, had to heat it up while it was in the vise, was almost glowing. But you could hear the squeeking as it slowly moved. There were no needle bearings left in two caps, must've welded the caps to the joints and shaft. Haven't put it back together yet, still too hot, hopefully I didn't bend anything out of shape.

 

I've always found that if they don't move easily / smoothly by hand, time to replace.

 

Another happy ending!.........

 

Damn dude... those are some old joints!

 

yeah, I'd say if you have to heat it to glowing to get it to move, its shot

 

if you pull axle shafts is it a good idea to just replace the seals? or would it be fine to use the original ones?

 

I didn't replace mine, they weren't leaking so I was very careful when I put the shafts back in, so far so good.