My FWD Jeep

[lupinsea]

I pulled my rear driveshaft on my Jeep this morning and drove into work. Whee, a FWD Wrangler! Now I can be just like a Jeep Compass.

It's interesting to see how the handling and feel of the vehicle changes when switching from RWD to FWD. There's certainly more pull in the steering and the ass-end squats down or feels like it's getting sucked down like on most FWD cars I've driven.

But hey, no knocking and the Jeep drives smooth.

It took me about 10 minutes to pull the driveshaft this morning in the driveway. Then I just shifted the Jeep into 4WD and I was good to go. I'll take a closer look at the rear driveshaft but I think I'll need to get a new one. This one looks to be shot after a half decade of offroading.

I've been having some odd knocking / vibration noises and I think it's coming from my rear driveshaft. The rear u-joint had 3 out of 4 bearing caps contain nothing but dust and bits of needle bearings (not good). After swapping in a new u-joint the other night the knocking / vibration is still there. It might be the centering ball in the middle of my double cardan joint on the other end of the driveshaft, because the other u-joints looked and felt to be in good shape still.

Several years ago I sheared off a zerk fitting driving over some BIG rocks so I haven't had a chance to grease the splines for the last few years. They're all dried out, have some play in them, and I can't separate the two halves of the driveshaft to grease them up. Then, I think the centering ball in the middle of the double-cardan joint needs replacing. That's ~$60 or so. PLUS, I was figuring on needing to shorten and rebalance my driveshaft when I swap in the new rear axle. That would be $100.

So, $160 to dump into my current driveshaft with the worn out splines.

or

$270-300 for a brand new custom driveshaft sized exactly right for my application with all new u-joints and centering ball thingy.