Universal Joint Yoke/Drive Flange 7340695

[Lou]

Hello All,
While greasing the mutt and checking diffs, wheel bearings etc. Noticed some play between the drive flange and the wheel hub spindle. There is about 2-3/16 of play when you rotate the drive flange before the wheel hub and tire rotate. All my wheels do this except one. I have in the past changed the drive flange and spindle hub and seemed to have darn near the same amount of play when done. Is this a normal occurrence? Is this play normal?

Anytime wheel bearings were replaced, extra grease was packed in the hub and sure some of that finds it's way between the splines. Has anyone ever heard of the splines wearing so much that the splines strip out between the drive flange and spindle hub?

If worse came to worse, if they did strip out can always just put it in 4 wheel drive and let the other axle get us home.

Only concerned about this because a few years ago the drive shaft spline that drives the impeller stripped out on our jet-ski and left us stranded.

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[rickf]

I have some NOS hubs and spindles in the lot of stuff I got. I will mate a couple up tomorrow and see if they have any play in them. There is normally no appreciable play in splined shafts other than what is needed to slide in and out. And in this case it is not a constant in and out, just and assembly fit. Maybe it is all those burnouts you are doing?

[12Bravo]

I checked this on 4 different 151's and they all had the play in them. I noticed this on my first A2 and thought I had a job ahead of me and $ until I checked my friends A2 with a little over 8000 original miles on it and his had the same play on all 4 shafts.

[lpcoating]

I like to check my drive line every month or so during the driving season. Grease and grab ahold of drive shafts / half shafts and check for any excessive play in the universals. I have also noticed the play between the drive flange and hub. Mid season I replaced all wheel bearing seals so I had the assembly apart, cleaned, greased. I did not see any signs of excessive wear on any of the items. Nature of the beast?

Guy

[ThomasDiSantare]

Tell the members of the forum, you can replace part of the cardan (splined fork) from the same other, or it is strictly balanced by the manufacturer in the assembly, i.e. balancing weights are welded on both halves. Will there be vibration. Although the slotted yoke is numbered and comes as a spare part

[rickf]

Are you stating this as a statement or asking a question? The axle parts are interchangeable and can be swapped with other axles. They come as replacements from the factory as separate ends of the axles. No weights.