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ot front u joint on 97 dodge truck

C

chrisinsoky

Member
the truck is four wheel and the front left u joint keeps breakin. took it to the dealership last year to have replaced and they said the ball joints looked ok. anyone else have this problem? or any other idea on what keeps puttin that u joint in a bind. i dont use the four wheel drive that much to be wearin them out thats for sure. the truck is long bed extended cab as long as they make em. (could that be the problem?)
 
Dodge never should have put a u-joint on the front axle. U-joints weren't designed to work properly over about 17 degrees. Make sure you grease the new owns regularly. Aftermarket joints come with a zerk fitting. You'll need to do this yourself since a lot of shops don't use the pin adapter to grease u joints or they blow the seals off with too much pressure. Before installation into the axle make sure the u-joint moves freely in all directions. With the yoke installed it should flop freely if the shaft were rotated. If they don't the cap housings are bent together and need to be seperated to prevent future recurrence. Be careful not to tear the seal in the differential! We always greased the splines before we slowly installed it. If you can get a ball joint press to press the u-joint cups in and out. Hope this helps. Gerard
 
I just had the left front u-joint on my 97 ram 1500 changed. I put 100k miles on it and it wasn't new when I bought the truck. It's a regular cab, short box, 5spd.

I'm not aware of any specific design problems, other than not being able to turn tight with the front axle engaged.
 
I have had several fail on my truck but it has 350,000 miles on it. So about every 100k or so I replaced them. They are easy to damage when installing so if they wheren't carful they could have damaged them installing them. What has helped them last better is installing grease fittings and then using Polyurea grease(part# TY6341). It is what is recommended for the axle bearings on John Deere tractors. I know that someone else makes it too but haven been able to find it. Plus the few tubes a years I use isn't worth a lot of hunting. I use it on all my ujoints and heavy load bearings. It seems to make them last much better than regular lithium grease.
 
If the truck came with steering stops on the front spindles, one of them could be broken or missing causing too much steering travel in one direction?
 
I changed mine at about 150k, and have about 50k on the replacements with no problems....BUT, the original factory UJ caps were FT and were very hard to press out. I used my 20 ton shop press on the first one and had it about max'd out before they came apart. While pressing,I closed one of the yokes up slightly making it really tight to re assemble. I ended up filing the inside face of the yoke to get the clip to fit without forcing the caps together. Maybe whoever did your's bent a yoke and forced the new caps in with a press to get the clips on, making the joint tight?
When I did the other side, I used a BFH and a top link pin to drift the caps out, rather than using the press. Took longer but worked better.
Chris
 
GM ran u joints in the front of their solid axle trucks for years with little problems. I think the reason dodge front u joints wear out is because the stock ones are not greasable. Or their supplier is building cheap u joints. I use the super duty napa ujoints and they are a lot better built. I am curious as to where you got the info on not running a u joint past 17 degrees. I mean a lot of farm equipment has them on the pto shafts and so do mfwd tractors. Can you explain on that more, you have me curious
 
the oem u joints have a plastic keeper ring and you heat the cup with a torch to melt the plastic keeper out BE VERY CARFULL THE WILL BLOW HOT PLASTIC OUT. you should not press the out with out heat or you can stretch the yoke and new caps will be loss
 
Mike I learned that at a Moog seminar years ago when a question was brought up to an instructor about why trucks with lift kits are a lot harder on u-joints. That was about the time when we started seeing the need for CV axle repairs like boots and joints. If you ask people that drive Dodge 4wd trucks they get a strange push..pull out of the front end in 4wd when turning sharply-that's the binding due to too high of an angle with the u-joints. He also said some angle is necessary to allow the rollers to roll and therefore distribute the wear. When I worked at a Dodge dealership as a technician we replaced many of these u-joints. Gerard
 
"4 Wheel Drive and Offroad" magazine has had
several articles, and letters to the editor
on the subject of failing u-joints. Perticularly
on Dana 44 model axles. It seemes that Dodge,
when specifying those axles, demanded changes
from stock to make them less costly, (CHEAPER),
and lots of people are having problems with
failing U-joints. Some aftermarket suppliers are
making a hevier duty replacement. Whatever you do
DON'T use OEM replacements from a Dodge dealer!
There may be some way to google the magazine and
get a month index and look up the article.
 
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