Your lubrication for the enclosed U-joint comes thru the rear
bearing and that's what the seal back in the torque tube is
for and the seal in the replacement Okie bushings. If you
don't have oil in the bell then you are running your
transmission oil level to low.
If....and I repeat, If.... that needle bearing cap seats
properly in the yoke, then there is no reason is shouldn't
last as long as any other of the billions upon billions of
Needle bearing universal joints that the automotive industry
has been using in their cars and trucks long before I was
born, and that was a long, long time ago.
The original universal joint cap was not oilite, it was a
solid steel metal to metal plain bearing design. Oilite is
made by compressing under extremely high pressure, powdered
metal till it bonds together resulting in a porous structure.
They are best suited for axial loads or in linear applications
and are not well suited to heavy radial loads.
In my opinion, the interference I saw in the original posters
picture only needed to be relieved in the corner till the
machined surfaces sat flush with each other.
I think a needle bearing U-joint is an excellent up grade to
the original plain bearing U-joint.
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL
Last edited by Denny Graham; 01/22/2016 12:39 PM.
