Well I am going to try to replace my u-joints over the weekend. I am also gonna try to replace the pinion seal while I'm there. Can anybody tell me what kind of surprises I might run into? Anything that I should know before that would make things easier? Thank in advance.

 

i need to replace my pinion seal to, i reused the old one and its kinda leaking(not bad at all).

you might want to know how to torque the pinion nut down to the required ft./lbs.
I'm not sure, but I would think that if you take the pinion nut off (which you are planning) then you might mess up the Pinion Preload (how deep/shallow the pinion is) which could throw off gear Backlash.
GOOD LUCK!

 

I now have my drive shaft off and I have my dad trying to help me out with getting the rear u-joint off. No matter what we try we can't get it out. In my repair book I have for my Camaro, it says that we need to put a 1 1/8 inch socket of one end of the u-joint and a 5/8 on the other side. And we have to put it into a vice and then I can get the u-joint out. I don't have a vice that can accompany all that so we tried a c-clamp. That didn't work. Can anybody tell me how I can get these things out!? I am getting tired of messing with them.

 

You have to have a vise or a press. since you have to press them back in anyhow.. You could try to take a large punch (and i do mean large) and a hammer to beat the old one out.. but you still will not get the new one in. You also need to have a pretty dencent sized vice.. I think one that opens to 10 inches would work the best... since then you have room to spare for other things.. The easiest way though is a press... if you have a welder you can make one pretty easily.

 

I will try to find somebody I know with a vice that will fit this stuff.

 

As much as I hate to do it I think I am just gonna have to put the drive shaft back in without taking out the u-joints and take it to the local shop here. I couldn't get those things out to save my life and I couldn't find anybody with a big vice or a press.

 

get a Haynes

 

I got the old ones out and put in the new ones finally. I didn't get to replace my pinion seal though. This might be a stupid question, but what exactly is gear backlash? I'm not entirely sure...

 

for future reference, if it's a factory U joint, they are plastic sealed. They need to be heated to extrude the plastic before they U joints will be able to be removed.

Because of that, and the ability to install them incorrectly and damage them in the process, this is one of the few things that I recommend you let a pro handle.