{"id":6159,"date":"2026-09-01T07:22:28","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T11:22:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kgworks.ca\/?p=6159"},"modified":"2026-09-01T07:31:20","modified_gmt":"2026-09-01T11:31:20","slug":"universal-noise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kgworks.ca\/?p=6159","title":{"rendered":"Universal noise"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Or at least I hope that it is universal noise that I’m getting between about 2100-2400 RPM. No choice but to replace both universals as I don’t know which is the problem and I don’t want to do the job more than once.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Chevy back up on the Quick Jack – the tool is getting lots of use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Drive shaft out again. Always a bit of a pain as I forget the free the rear universal before going on to the front. That way the universal at the front isn’t flopping around as you turn the shaft to get at the 11mm rear bolts. I used lots of Locktite on the bolts so that had to been cleaned off using the wire wheel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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When I removed one of the caps on the new universals I found that the grease inside was semi solid from sitting around on the shelf. I bought these from a Canadian Corvette supplier so I expected them to be A-one. Not so one had a tan coloured grease and the other black. I pushed new red grease through each arm in turn and then filled the cup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These are greaseable units – I expected to get non-greaseable permanent units, but these came instead. Not a big problem with the driveshaft as it would have been with the short shafts. I don’t remember replacing the grease in the permanent units I had put on the car. Old hard grease might have been the problem that is causing the vibration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Turns out I got the wrong u-joints. They are too short. I needed the ones with the longer cross shaft measurement of 3-5\/8″. So they’ll be returned and I’ll pick up two from the local CarQuest shop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The MOOG #354 units are the same as the old ones – 3-5\/8″ cross shaft and 1-1\/16″ caps. The instructions on the box lid in one case and in the box itself in the other, says that the bearings must be greased before use. There is a bit of assembly grease in place which would work for a little while. These instructions need to be more noticeable or a small paper insert with the directions wouldn’t go amiss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Using the handy tool I borrowed from my pal Don to get the old bearings out and the new ones in. Works a charm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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New bearings in place, OK but the rear one is very tight. I suspect that the yoke is bent. If that is the case then that might have caused the bearing to fail prematurely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This is the setup I used to check to see if the yokes were bent. I measured at the yoke end and then at the far end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Only one yoke are was in a straight line with the driveshaft tube. The others need bending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I didn’t want to remove the universals for fear of damaging them so I cut a piece of 1-1\/4″ steel tubing that I used to rap the inside of the yoke arms to move them outwards and I used a short length of full 1-1\/4″ pipe to rap the outside of the arms to move them inwards<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I managed to get them all within 1\/32″ at the far end of the square bar stock and the driveshaft tube.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Put the unit back in the car and went for a test drive. NO JOY! Still the same grinding vibration at about 2100 rpm and a bit around 1200. Should have checked the noise more closely instead of assuming the driveshaft was the problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Turns out that the sound is present with the car in park! From what I read that narrows down the problem to the rotating engine parts. Things to check are the harmonic balancer, flex plate, alternator bearings (rebuilt) and water pump (new)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the fun goes on…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Or at least I hope that it is universal noise that I’m getting between about 2100-2400 RPM. No choice but to replace both universals as I don’t know which is the problem and I don’t want to do the job more than once. Chevy back up on the Quick Jack – the tool is getting … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Universal noise”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kgworks.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6159"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kgworks.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kgworks.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kgworks.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kgworks.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6159"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/kgworks.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6178,"href":"https:\/\/kgworks.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6159\/revisions\/6178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kgworks.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kgworks.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kgworks.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}