[DeTomaso] u joint broken

[Jim Hendrickson]

Last time I checked, the OEM joints cost $40-$120 each, depending on what
type you wanted. Surprisingly, the high dollar ones were the ones with no
grease zerks. Racers like them because they seem to be stronger than the
ones with the grease zerks.

There was an extensive discussion about half shafts and U-joints on this
list a couple of years ago. There are some OEM half shafts out there that
have been bored and sleeved to accept the Spicer U-joints or some Ford truck
U-joint. That was one of the solutions from the days when OEM joints were
hard to get.

I did end up buying the Spicers because I had a number of bearing cups
spinning in the yokes. Apparently the yokes were bored over-size by the
manufacturer. The caps would spin freely. There were no gall marks. The
bores in the yokes were clean - you could even see the swirl marks where
they had retracted the boring bar with the spindle running. It seems that a
number of cars had the over size yoke bores.




-----Original Message-----
From: detomaso-bounces at realbig.com [mailto:detomaso-bounces at realbig.com] On
Behalf Of MikeLDrew at aol.com
Sent: Monday, March 31, 2008 1:59 AM
To: Edracers at aol.com; detomaso at realbig.com
Subject: Re: [DeTomaso] u joint broken


In a message dated 3/30/08 18 21 34, Edracers at aol.com writes:


>     I just found out that my driver's side outer u  joint is broken. Do I
> have to go to a Pantera parts house to get one or are  their standard u 
> joints
> that I could obtain at a local auto parts store?
> Thanks for any information.
> 

It's a Pantera-specific part, but thankfully now they are pretty cheap.

Don't let anybody sucker you into paying hundreds of dollars for 'heavy
duty' 
Spicer driveshafts.   There was never anything wrong with the stock 
driveshafts; it was just the U-joints that were a known weak link.   For a
long time, 
replacement U-joints cost a fortune and it was cheaper to just replace the 
entire driveshaft.   That is no longer true.

Plan on replacing ALL of them at the same time. 

Mike


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