front u joints are bad, any advice or tips from any one who has done it? any must have special tools? i plan to do it next weekend

 

You have to have the right size large socket for the hub nut. Spray it good with some penetrating oil before jumping on it. I snapped my 1/2" breaker bar last weekend doing my driver hub so you may need to put some serious poundage on yours. Before you tear it apart though check to see if your hub unit needs to be replaced while you're at it. You may end up doing it too since it could be a pain to get out of the knuckle. The u-joints are easy after that.

 

+1 on everything said there.. I have found that when breaking the nut loose on the hub I use a 4 foot piece of pipe and go that route.. Still takes a serious amount of force to get it loose..

 

i went out and soaked everything in pb blaster i plan to do it again about wednesday, and then friday evening, im trying to find a 1 11/16 socket for the hub nut that i can borrow, i think ill try to use a pretty big impact to get it off because it looks as if it has never been taken off and is pretty rusted... that got soaked with pb blaster too

 

use something stronger.. pb blaster just wont cut it.. Never did for mine

 

thats all i have, i figure its better than nothing, what do you recommend?

 

Alot of guys say that atf and acetone is good.. Havent tried it myself seeing as in how I havent had anything to work on lately.

 

This past summer i had to do my driver side bearing so i was gonna do the u-joint too. I ended up having to chisle the old hub nut off and in doing that screwed up the axle end. So I bought a new nut, axle end and u-joint and did it all at once. The bearing was rusted in there horribly but the u-joint wasnt bad.

 

ill put it up on the lift in my buddies barn and i ill hang on the breaker bar if i have to, ive taken the one off my grandpas 03 cummins and didnt have too bad of a time

 

I just did my drivers side today. The whole process wasn't too bad. One thing I did that I'd like to pass along. During reassembly, I wire brushed the inside of the hub and then sprayed it with white lithium grease for the future.

Also a snag that I had run into in case you, or anyone else has the same problem. The caps on the inner half of the axle shaft were completely seized in the yoke. I beat on it for an hour, stuck it in the wood stove for 5 minutes, heated just the caps with a torch with no luck. What finally worked was cutting the actual joint in the chop saw. This let me deal with one cap at a time. They finally came out but still had to use a sledge hammer.

Rob