I'm going to be using some of my christmas money to replace all the u-joints on my 1998 4Runner. It is 4wd. I looked under there and it looked to me like there were 3 on the rear driveshaft and 2 on the front, but the auto parts websites say 2 per drive shaft. Does anyone know for sure how many there are total?

 

Why are you replacing the ujoints?

 

There are indeed 3 on the rear (Double Cardan Driveshaft) and two on the front. I am not sure if you can replace the U-joints on a Toyota driveshaft yourself. i think you have to take it to a shop, as there is a special way to do it.

 

Well that figures! I planned to replace mine as well, guess not.

 

Just an update...

I did the rear u-joint this past saturday. I didn't mess with the double cardan or the front shaft, as they all seemed nice and tight. The rear had a lot of extra play in it so we did that one. It wasn't fun at all, but we didn't end up unbolting the driveshaft from the transfer case so we were doing most of the work on the floor under the truck. We just used a pretty big socket and a hammer to pound the u-joints through. It was me and my brothers first time changing u-joints, so if you have any experience at all it shouldnt be much of an issue.

I did find out through reading that replacing u-joints in the double cardan is basically not doable, and the toyota dealers just replace the entire double cardan rather than tear it apart.

 

I was able to replace the joints in the double cardan....it sucked. My issue is I cannot find what size the front u joint of the rear drive shaft is. They are not the same size as rear joint. Does anyone know a pn?

 

Ps I have a 98 4 runner sr5 4wd auto 3.4l