Anyone ever blow the rear driveshaft?

[Slyclone]

I am wondering if anyone has ever blown the rear driveshaft in a typhoon? Stock truck? Im sure there has been plenty of HIGH POWER BLOW OUTS. My typhoon is stock. Either that or I am wondering what the life span of one is. My typhoon just rolled over to 121K.

I have this WAH WAH WAH noise at 2000-2500 RPM like the truck is dogging me. Sounds like its trying to keep up. Its not like a baby crying noise but sure seems like its in correlation to RPM... LOW SPEED.. The WAH WAH WAH is like a surge feeling/noise like something is binding up.

I get the idea that it could be the U joints in the Driveshaft? I looked at them the other day ( the JOINTS) and there was a dusty material coming from the joints. Looked like graphite powder. I got in my truck today and something felt funny. almost like a rim was bent. I had to pull over check all wheels, check all lugs...

Also, I understand that the driveshafts have been injection molded with plastic to set the end caps in. I went through this before with my syclone driveshaft and never made any progress.

How long do the OE joints typically last?
What should I do as far as replacing the U joints with the driveshaft?

Would the Rear shocks in my truck be hindering things? I had a feeling that they were blown.. If they are blown... will they change the angle of the drive shaft and strain the U joints? Im getting the idea thats whats going on but can not verify. I suspected the rear diff was dry and opended the plug to verify there is fluid in the rear. When I was checking that out I noticed the powder on the inner portion of the driveshaft.

Any advise is welcome.

 

[pearl91chevy]

Re: Anyone ever blow the rear driveshaft?

U joints are cheap and pretty easy to do, all mine have made a weird drone noise at speed when they go bad. Also shouldn't be able to move the driveshaft back and forth at the joints.

 

[Slyclone]

Re: Anyone ever blow the rear driveshaft?

I know there pretty cheap. I just was deterred from doing a syty driveshaft for the sole fact of the injection molded b/s they are held in with. Some say heat them up.. Others say press them out. I tried along time ago with my syclone and stopped. The driveshaft for my syclone is in the same spot I left it a while ago.

Probably something pretty easy but I never made it this far.

 

[pearl91chevy]

Re: Anyone ever blow the rear driveshaft?

If I remember right I used a torch and heated the joint up, that glue or plastic, whatever is in there eventually came Out looking like a worm lol

 

[Syclone#892]

Re: Anyone ever blow the rear driveshaft?

If the u-joints are still held in place by the injected plastic, they are stock and most likely bad by now. You also so there is a powder coming out of them, sounds like there is no grease so the rollers are being ground to bits of powder. If you continue to drive like that you run a very big risk of a cap blowing apart and then your driveshaft can come out and get damaged making a $20 fix and expensive one.
All that is necessary is to heat the end the caps are in, not the caps themselves. The plastic will come out, after that you can press the u-joints out whatever way works best for you, sockets, u-joint press etc. Or since it sounds like you are not confident in the job, remove the shaft and take it to a local driveshaft shop or auto shop it won't cost much to have them replaced. A co worker paid a shop $50 to have both rear joints done on his silverado and he did not take the shaft out and he supplied his own u-joints.

Very bad u-joints, like it sounds like you have, will cause weird feeling driving and usually a decent clunk on accel or decel and when shifting from park to reverse or drive.

Good luck with the project and I hope that helps clarify things for ya :myclone: