The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Driveline Hot universal ball housing. 1954 3100

Stovebolters

Had ujoint fail a few months back. Obtained complete NOS assembly (with yokes) from fellow stovebolter on this site. Carefully cleaned out pieces of old ujoint, installed new okie bushing, and adjusted universal bell cover according to manual. Added fluid as prescribed.
Now after 10 miles, the universal ball housing gets very hot. Hot enough you can't keep a hand on it. There is no noise or vibration coming from driveline.
Appreciate any assistance. Have taken the assembly apart many times trying to locate the problem.

Thanks
Joe

I think this is a very important question and I for one am interested in whatever answers turn up.

By the way you would get some answers over on the VCCA site.

Over the years I have seen most of the torque tubes with Okies get quite hot at first.
I have not seen this to be a problem.
As the bushing heats it expands away from the shaft so seizing is unlikely.
As long as you lubed it good during assembly I feel it will be OK.
You may want to do a few short trips with a cool down time in between at first.

Dave,
so adding the initial lube inside the ball is very important, wouldn't you say?

On transmissions with that provision I would recommend that.

As long as the U-joint isn't scraping the housing, I wouldn't worry about it. A lot of old pickups were parked because the bushing got so bad that the U-joint scraped the housing and it sounded like the whole thing was going to come apart and the owners were afraid it would be expensive to fix.

Thanks to all for the input. Will start the short trips this weekend & report back.

Did 2 short trips @ 20 miles each. Checked bell housing, afterwards. Still hot in vicinity if okie bushing. When driving, engine, tranny & driveline perform smoothly.
Continue to drive & check? Would after some more miles, the parts wear to each other?
One local suggestion was to take rear yoke to machine shop and have one or two thousands shaved off. Am more inclined to believe genius GM NOS part is fine and modern okie bushing is more likely the culprit.

The only thing I might wonder about is if the heat could hurt the oil seal on the Okie?

John

jwc,

Have you rechecked the fluid level in the transmission?

Cold, the gear oil should be a little below the the filling hole on the side of the transmission.
Warm, the gear oil should be up to the filling hole.

As mentioned above, I think, the transmission fluid "feeds" the u-joint housing. The level of gear oil will eventually level out between the transmission and u-joint housing.

Tim

Checked fluid level. Tranny was generally cooled. It took a few squirts before coming out filling hole. Function of fluid feeding to ujoint probably. I know every time I have cracked the ujoint housing fluid comes out, and when assembled, and speedo gear is pulled fluid drains there as well.

Joe

I would keep running it, it will wear in.
It the oil level in the rear end starts to climb then you will know that the Okie seal had become damaged from heat, but I doubt it will.

Thanks to all the assist and advice. Will continue to drive & monitor.