The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Driveline u joint replacement

I replaced the U Joint less than 1,000 miles ago on my 53 3100 PU with torque tube,while I doing the Patricks 3:55 gear swap. I purchased the u Joint from one of the parts vendors, and today it let loose going down the road. Would this be just a bad U-Joint? Any Suggestions would be appreciated.From my searches here everyone say the U-Joints that vendors sell for a 53 1/2 ton with Torque Tube come from china. Thanks in advance.

Boz

When you say it "let loose" what do you mean? If the spider (center) broke then most likely it was defective or poor quality. I assume it was getting lubrication from the tranny and was oily when you took it out. If you describe what happened others on this forum will chip in with similar experiences. To date I've not had a U joint go bad in my "49 3100 w/torque tube.

The bolts that hold the trunion have small heads and there should be a locking plate to prevent the bolts from turning. When I did mine I bought the bolts and the locking plate from The Filling Station. It looked like the (Grade 8) bolts were actually cast and the holes in the plate were big enough for the bolt heads to go right through. And on the u-joint was that infamous yellow sticker that read CHINA.
As I have said so many times that as long as we are buying these inferior parts and not advising the vendors of the garbage they are selling then the more will come.

you can't go wrong with spicer...

Don't think you can get Spicer U-joints for a torque tube application can you?

Spicer is always my first choice for U-joints too. After all they did invent the things...

Grigg

I was able to get an NOS U joint for my `53 half ton torque tube locally. That was about 2 years ago and he had a good supply of them.

Place a want-ad in the Swap Meet. There is a member who sells NOS/NORS u-joints.

Regarding non-North-American u-joints, I had a serious problem with a new u-joint from South America (where I think that 235s were made and sold after they ceased being produced in North America). I realized why the eBay seller was selling it for such a small amount when I found that I could not get it onto the splines on my enclosed driveshaft. My guess is that metric tooling/measurement during manufacturing was not within tolerances for a North American fit?

i'g with grigg. i replaced the ones on my 40 with what napa sells(i forget the name)they wouldnt fit. so i went to a spicer dist. and he got a spicer and it would fit. the issue was with a change in the yoke design. he told me what to do and offered me the spicer joints at a higher cost than napa's. i told him i already got them at napa and he said they are the only joints equal to spicer in quality. they were a couple of buck cheaper. sorry i cant remember the name at this time.