Save Your Broken Axle With This U-joint Quick Fix
Busting an axle while out in the rough terrain is a big problem. For one, you’ve lost two drive wheels. And two, you have to figure out how to limp it back to your garage for a repair. Regardless of where you do the full repair, if you bust an axle joint, there’s a quick and cheap fix you can do to patch things. It’ll allow you to drive your Jeep without risking further damage to your driveshafts.
As you can see in the video below, this procedure does require some disassembly, but it is well worth your time. You’ll have to take off the wheel and tire, and remove the brake caliper and rotor. You’ll remove the unit bearing next, as the whole axle shaft has to come out. There’s no need to take anything else off the stub axle, but you will need to plug the axle tube to keep gear lube from leaking out. A rubber expansion plug will do the trick to keep all of the lube where it belongs.
Upgrading your Jeep before a failure is the best route though, and prevents all of the headache of having to do a trail-fix. Factory axle kits can replace those weak joints with heavy duty components.
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