The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Driveline Propeller Shaft Disasembly - Need Help

I am trying to remove the propeller shaft of my 41' GMC from the transmission. The shaft is exactly like figure 3 of section 18 (page 351) from the GMC 47-54' Maintenance Manual (enclosed front shaft with open rear shaft). The rear shaft is removed, the center bearing has been removed, the ball collar at the transmission has been removed but it won't slide off. I drilled a tiny hole in the front shaft housing to get penetrating oil on the shaft to loosen it from the yoke with no luck. Any help is greatly appreciated!

Can you seperate the ujoint? You need to do that then remove the bolt on the yoke so that it slides off..

I cannot access the u-joint as it is behind the ball collar. This particular collar does not slide open for access. It is factory welded solid from the front ujoint to the Center Bearing housing. if there is a bolt holding the ujoint on it is no wonder I can't remove it. However, no such bolt is shown in the manual......huh

Thanks for the feedback!

you should be able to just unbolt the bolts at the back of the trans and slide that ball collar back to access the u joint u might have to get some sand paper and sand some of the 65 yr. old crap thats on the shaft, behind the cover, thats what I had to do to my 46 1/2ton to get to the u joint

It there a collar on the back of the ball collar? You will need to loosen this to slide it back. It may take some persuasion to move it if its been there a while..

The ball collar has been removed. The front u-joint is connected to this shaft by a splined slip yoke. It should by all reason slide right off. The shaft housing is one piece from the bearing support at the rear of the shaft all the way to the u-joint at the rear end of the transmission. There is no apparent way of removing this from the back end of the shaft to see what is inside. I remain perplexed

I referred to the housing in earlier comments as the collar. So I may have confused folks - sorry. The ball collar has been removed. The housing remains concealing the shaft and u-joint.

In my 1942 to 46 manual it says: "Remove the four bolts which attach the universal ball retainer to the rear end of the transmission and slip the retainer back on the tube.

Remove the nuts from the bolts which attach the support bracket to the cross member. Then pull the assembly towards the rear to clear the slines to the front universal joint. "

deleted (wrong year)

DADS50,
if you look at the diagram for the 1942 3/4 Ton, it doesn't slide like your 1/2 ton and there is no seal retainer. It appears that the two pieces are fused together.

Sorry

I'll delete my post above

No no, don't apologize. I think this is a case that has apparently not come up before in discussion and many have thought the same as you. It is some kind of variation of their design that is different than all the rest.

Is there any way to take some pictures and post them on Webshots or something so that we can see what you are faced with?

I have done quite a bit of driveline work and I don't quite understand your challenges. Maybe its just we are calling apples oranges or something.

Here is the start of the instruction at the bottom of the page: Front Propeller Shaft Removal and here is the rest of the instruction and an illustration Illustration Note in the illustration that the back half of the cover does not slide over the back portion, as in the half ton. The instructions are quite clear to remove the whole housing from the transmission.

I just read some more of the instruction. In order to get at the collar seal, you have to remove the hanger assembly and slide the collar over the bearing. That is quite the contraption!

that is correct. there is no retainer to slide. The housing is a single piece.

It is quite a contraption. By the time I get it figured out my penetrating oil I injected into the slip yoke will have had four months of working time! Thanks.

Ok! Pictures are worth a thousand words and just by dumb luck, I assembled the GMC version of this setup JUST YESTERDAY!!

The easiest way to get all this apart is to unbolt the rear axle from the rear springs. Then disconnect the rubber brake line and slide the rear axle towards the rear of the truck and the splines will slip out of the rear yoke. Then open the rear ball collar and using a socket with extension remove the nut and then remove the rear u-joint. Once this is out of the way the rest comes out just like above. The joint is press fitted in so you wont be able to take apart as I mentioned before.....

I try to avoid appending to old threads - but this one seems recent enough!

I pulled apart the propeller shaft assembly today and got the rubber seal off the center bearing.

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The two outer "dust covers" I can't seem to remove. Not really sure how to hold onto it to separate the halves.

But now I've done some reading, and realized that the bearings are non serviceable, and no repacking is possible. Now I question the need to even pull it apart, other than to clean it up a bit. There is no play in the bearing, it spins freely.

The rubber boot wasn't tight in the carrier - my whole reason for removal.

So now I plan to buy the 3/4 ton center cushion and modify it to fit - as I read that in another post here, and the 1 ton version proves difficult to locate.

Thoughts?