I have a '95 K1500 with the 350 in it and an auto tranny, and up until a few weeks ago was having some major speaking/creaking coming out of one or both of the u-joints. So I watched a few youtube vids and decided it wasn't anything I couldn't handle (turned out well, huh), so I went to O'Reillys and had them look up the part numbers for both u-joints on the rear axle.

I tore into it one saturday afternoon, had no problems until I was reinstalling the drive shaft, and noticed that even after I had both of the outside clips locked in on the u-joint, the driveshaft would slide back and forth on the rear u-joint. I knew then that it was pretty unlikely that it was supposed to do that, but since I have never switched out u-joints before, I decided to go ahead and finish bolting it back on, and test it out to see if it was going to be a problem.

I started out slowly driving down a dirt road by my house, the squeak was gone, but I just wanted to make sure there wasnt going to be any vibrations from possibly installing the shaft incorrectly, or if something was going to jack up since I noticed that little bit of play in the shaft after it was installed. Everything went fine for about 10 minutes, to the point I was satisfied that I had successfully replaced the joints, then on the drive back to the house, sure enough, the caps on the rear joint popped off.

I assumed the rear u joint was simply too small, so I went back to o'reillys, had them look up the part again, and they came up with a different joint, so I signed up for round 2 vs. the u joints. Got back to the house, removed the draft shaft, found that a cap had also popped off the front joint, and after removing the rear joint from the shaft, noticed the new u joint caps were way too big.

So my dilemma is, I don't know if O'Reillys is just giving me the wrong parts (i know they did with the 2nd joint), or if I somehow managed to incorrectly install the joints the first time around. I had all the snap rings installed back in the way they were supposed to be, and everything looked right. I just assumed I had the wrong u joint after noticing the movement on the installed drive shaft on the rear joint, but then again, the front one popped out, also.

Like I said before, I've never switched out a u-joint before, so are there any tips/insight you guys might have as to what I could possibly doing wrong? Do you think the part numbers were correct? They gave me a Masterpro 354 for the front and a 355 for the rear. 2nd time I went back they gave a masterpro 231 for the rear joint. It is a tad longer, but the caps are too large to get started in the holes on the drive shaft.

And yes, I know I clearly have no clue what I'm doing, but any help at all would be great.....Thanks!!

 

when you installed the joints were you sure that the needle bearings were all in place and the two "straps" on the rear were tightened to torque? ive had good installs and bad ones..one really bad where one needle bearing was out of place and when i pressed the caps in i split the aluminum on the shaft. it ended up costing almost 900 to replace with a new one. live and learn i suppose. just try again

 

Yea I checked and double checked to make sure all the needles were standing up when I installed the joints....and my main worry is somehow ruining the shaft....thanks for the extra motivation not to...haha

 

My suggestion to you would be find a drive shaft shop. At work everyone of us can do u joints with no issues however we send them out. We pull the shaft out of the vehicle and they pick it up. Most of the time it costs the same amount of money for them to do the job (parts and labor)as if we ordered the parts. While the shaft is out we work on something else. You can take them the shaft and wait for it, it should take less than 30 min.

 

Yea I guess that's what I'll end up doing.

 

Bad joints return and try again just cuz you did it right and parts are right don't mean it will be right
With ujoints if you can take them out with out problem you can put new ones in

 

The rear most u-joint has 2 different sized shafts on the same joint. Use the right u-joint and it will fit.
One side fits the yoke on the rear and the other side fits the yoke on the shaft. Go to a dealer with your vin.# and have them look up the right part. I went thru this with my truck. Most parts houses won't carry the right part. just sayin...imho this will fix the problem.

 

Did anyone every find the solution to this problem I'm currently having this same issue