I was replacing my u joint and when I had the slip yoke portion of the shaft removed, and started to try and put it back on, some of the plastic from the splines started folding back... It ended it pulling off almost all of the plastic.

Is the plastic being removed from the splines a big deal, and is there a way to remove that cover to acces all of the splines, so I can clean out the remaining plastic.

 

frond drive shaft ? .. not sure of what your talking about .. there is NO plastic there ..

what year is your rig ?

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95 v6 4wd 4runner.

Rear drive shaft, at the front of it, where the slip yoke slips onto the splines, there is a metal cover that covers most of the splines, it also has a rubber seal in it. It looks like it should be removable as it spins with great effort, but will not come off. On those splines there was a yellow plastic coating, I'm trying to access the rest of the splines to clean it off.

 

I called a drive shaft shop, and they said it's impossible to replace that plastic coating, and the drive shaft will not work without it. The only option would be to cut off the current portion with the splines and weld on a new one... Seriously?? Every time a drive shaft loses it's plastic coating it gets thrown out?