I have way more slack at the drive shaft flange than is ok, according to the FSM. searching said the nut maybe loose or the bearings are going bad. the dealership rebuilt the whole rear end (2500 bucks worth) about 90,000 miles ago. my question is, has anyone else just tightened the nut without replacing the bearings and crush sleeve?

 

Yes, unstake the nut, torque to ~90 ft.lbs. and restake the nut and see if it does the trick. I had to do that about 3 times on my old 5.29 geared rear diff before it bottomed out and stayed tight:
http://www.4crawler.com/4x4/CheapTri...eal/index.html

 

after unbolting the drive shaft, the flange has almost no play, but the new u-joints have a little play in them. thanks for your help 4Crawler.

 

Mind if I piggyback?

I have a loose ouput shaft at the t-case. The flange has too much play. Can I safely follow the same type of procedure as this? Or, is there something else I'd need to do. I assume the torque spec would be different...which I can look up.

 

Same procedure, same size, staked nut. No worry about overtorquing as there is no bearing pre-load to worry about. But 90 ft.lbs. or so is what I recall the torque to be, FSM would list the exact number. One tip is to apply some silicone sealant (black or similar) to the shaft splines before sliding the flange on to help seal that area.

 

Grazie...

 

wrong place

 

Reviving an old thread

I went to check my u-joints today after developing a bad vibration and noise. I found a loose drive shaft flange. I was thinking that maybe my rear diff was down and out. I found this thread and sure enough 4Crawler's post helped me again. It appears that a previous monkey had the nut loose and didn't restake it properly.