[urq] u-joint replacement on the urQ propshaft

[urq]

When I bought my car (used) back in '86 the dealer gave me a brand new
transaxle in an attempt to repair driveline noise coming from underneath the
car.  When they found that the new transaxle didn't resolve the noise, they
told me that was as far as they could (would) go to repair.  After having
paid a good sum for the car at that time I was not going to pay them to
complete the repair, I embarked on my first major DIY job for the car ...
fortunately I found the propshaft to be quite DIY repairable.  BTW, I still
have the repair invoice showing that Audi & the dealer "ate" more than most
folks here paid for their entire cars, so in the end I don't mind having to
learn how to repair the propshaft.  :-)

The early quattros had a rather ridiculous service interval for the U-joint
in the propshaft, 15K miles.  Here in the US many dealers never followed
this requirement, and most owners never even knew about it.  As anyone who
has done it knows the job is quite simple, except that it is something
nearly completely centered on the underside of the car.  

When I posted the initial q-list rebuild procedure oh those many years ago,
I found that there was false brinelling on the races of the U-joints of my
propshaft and ended up finding a standard replacement at my brother-in-law's
FLAPS.  I suspect that many other quattro owners in the early to mid '80s
had similar experiences (with the failures anyway) due to incomplete
maintenance of the propshaft. 

Steve Buchholz

-----Original Message-----

Hi Pat,

In fact, 2 out of 3 I did were still good, but since the joint is very cheap
(25$) and accessible when you do the center bearing, it's a no brainer. Just
do it. I think the failure mode is not a seized or destroyed joint like in
RWD cars, it's more like the cups are marked by the needles always resting
in the same spot. When you try to rotate it, you can feel the needles going
from one valley to the other, like on a car stereo volume knob, you know ? 

If you need some, try a Suzuki dealer. I'm sure it will carry those joints,
these are relatively popular. I can also buy some here for you and ship
overseas, if need be.

Louis-Alain


> -----Message d'origine-----
 
> LA , can you tell me something more about the u-joint ?
> you replaced in the prop shaft ?
> Pictures maybe ? And why did you replace it .
> 
> So far , I did several propshaft bearings , but I never had a cross joint
>  fail before .
> The rubber dust caps however are often crackled or even desintegrated .
> Never found a replacement for those either .
> And right now I'm out of reasonably good ones too.
> 
> Pat
> Belgium
> 


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