I received my Tatton driveshaft and all needed accessories (I hope) last week. I am set to start installing tomorrow. I've never done anything like this before. Is this something that needs to be done by an expert? I have an 08 2 door X. I know I need a gear puller, a buddy of mine has one to use. Anything else special? I have basic tools you would find in any garage (sockets, wrenches, etc.). Will I need an impact wrench? I don't have one, but I could probably come up with one. I don't even know where to start! Is it a basic unbolt the old one and bolt in the new one? I was told the rear wheels had to be removed. Is this right? I know there are other threads on here for this, but they are speaking greek to me. Please help!!!

 

Well I am no expert and I just replaced both the front and rear drive shafts myself.
It really isn’t that difficult.

No, you don’t need an impact wrench, I used a good sized torque wrench to take off and put on the yoke nuts… though a breaker bar of some kind would have been nice for the taking off part.

Some sockets that I had to go and get…
1-1/8 inch socket for the front pinion yoke
1-1/4 inch socket for the transfer case yokes
1-5/16 inch socket for the rear axle yoke
(These were some sizes that are not normally in a socket set.)
For the drive shafts I bought they suggested to order Jeep part number 5143738AA (1 nut per driveshaft) if you want to install a new yoke nut with each transfer case yoke, I did but it probably wasn’t necessary.

As far as taking off the tires, rear or front. I did not take them off. Simply jacked up the end I was working on when I needed the shaft to move freely.
So basically…
...when tightening or loosening the yoke nut I had the tires on the ground.
...when I was working on the shaft itself I jacked up the tires to allow the shaft to move making it easier to get the wrench on the smaller nuts that connect the shaft to the transfer case and differential.

Hope this helps

 

Well ya certainly DON'T need a gear puller. Ya do need a 5/16'/8mm socket to remove the long bolts holding either drive line to the transfer case. The bolts attaching the front U-joint to the pinion flange are 15mm and the rear attachment to that flange are the 5/16" ones. The replacements, that will definetly come with the shafts, are 13mm/1/2" (if they're like my JE Reels) for attaching the double Cardin's to the transfer case and the single Cardin at the rear pinion. You'll re-use the 15mm one's at the front pinion. The torque at the front pinion flange is 81 ft.lbs for those 4 bolts. The torque at the transfer case and rear pinion flange is a bit hazy. The spec in the manual for those 8 (each side) long bolts is 15 ft.lbs but my Reel's didn't spec any torque on the 13mm replacements I got with the shafts. They're hardened bolts so I arbitrarily set all 24 (8 at each attach point) to 45 ft.lbs. Use BLUE (not RED) Locktite on all bolts. Don't take off any wheels or ya won't be able to break the bolts free/re-torque them as the axles will turn with your wrenching. Once ya get under there (from the driver side) you'll see that probably 4 raises of the wheels to rotate the bolts to a position ya can get to them then lower the wheel back down are gonna be necessary. Overall not a tough job to just change shafts. Possible pinion adjustments to compensate for driveline vibration may be required.
Good luck!

Edit; From the previos posters reply I gather that you may be changing yokes (I didn't for my 1310 oem's) so you may indeed need a gear puller. Can't help ya there.

 

Does anyone know how to stop the transfer case from leaking? I have installed a JE REEL rear shaft and I've had a leak from the transfer case. I have replaced the seal on the transfer case and it is still leaking.

Upon looking at the stock flange I see there is a rubber seal inside the flange. My new JE REEL does not have it. Is there supposed to be another seal used or what? I'm totally lost and can't get the leak to stop.

Please HELP!

 

If ya think it's related to Jim's DL give him a call. 909-629-9002. A real straightforward guy!!

Sorry wrong thread my bad!

 

I got the teraflex rear driveshaft for my 2-door, I followed the instructions from teraflex and torque specifications, and then I took it for a test drive. At first it drove pretty well, once I went over 45-50 mph, the steering wheel started shaking pretty bad as well as the shift stick (pretty bad noise too!! Scared too!!!). I stopped, checked, thanks God everything seemed ok. I went back home (under 45 mph) nothing else happened. I have not drove it again, but I have been thinking a lot of what went wrong. I have rear upper adjustable control arms from tera and I have previously aligned the pinion angle. So it seems that the pinion is pointing towards the transfer case.

I will appreciate comments, advices!! Thanks guys!!

 

Hi Bone,

I can provide some advice; but, it will take me a couple of hours to work through something this morning. Can you wait that long for me to reply in detail? (I installed Tatton driveshafts a little over a month ago.)

Thanks

Jeff

 

Hi Bone,

I thought I would share a few of the lessons I learned during the replacement of my stock driveshafts with Tatton's. Please take these for what they are worth because I am not an expert.

I have an '08 JK 2-door Ribicon with an automatic.

I won't comment on the socket sizes you need because I'm not sure that I wrote all of that information down. I do know that I ended up buying more sockets than I needed based upon information in various threads. I would recommend buying them from someplace like AutoZone where you can return the sockets if you don't use them. And for some of the sockets, you can actually rent them from AZ.

Teraflex has a brief write-up on their website that you might want to look at. In addition to that write-up there is write-up for a driveshaft on this forum. I think the write-up on this forum is for a J.E. Reel.

1. Support all of the axles on jackstands. You don't need to take your wheels off.

2. Removing the pinion nut from the front differential was a real experience. I tried an impact gun that came with my compressor. (I believe it is rated at 360 ft-lbs.) It wouldn't budge the nut. I tried a long breaker bar with a 2' pipe cheater on the end, also with no success. I ended up buying a Craftsman Professional impact gun that was rated at 700 ft-lbs. It had to work for about 30 seconds; but, eventually it worked the nut loose. I'm 53, 190 pounds, and I was working under the JK, so maybe I just didn't have enough strength to remove the nut with the breaker. If I had it to do all over again, I would go straight to the 700 ft-lb impact gun.

3. The rear pinion nut didn't take near as much effort to remove.

4. I used a gear puller for three of the four yokes. The gear puller (from Harbor Freight) actually broke when I attempted to pull off the yoke of one of the differentials (the rear, I think). Someone else on the forum had posted something about using a wrench to work as an impromptu gear puller. I used a socket against the pinion bolt, and the retainer parts that are used on the OEM drive shaft. It was a pain... a gear puller is highly recommended, in my opinion.

5. Curtis Tatton told me that some people use pneumatic hammers to pop off the yokes. I didn't try it because I didn't want to put any more stress on the differential bearings and seals than necessary. This is an option you can always consider, though. (Make sure that you work your way around the yoke and don't just try to hammer it off in one position.

6. Don't waste your time removing the dust shields from the OEM driveshafts. They won't work on the Tatton shafts, nor will they work on other fabricators' shafts either, from what I have read here.

7. Curtis recommended that I install a bead of silicone sealant at the bottom of each pinion nut. The theory behind that is that it will keep the differential from leaking through the yoke. I followed his advice, and there have been no leaks. (I can't tell you whether it is because of the silicone, or because of the tolerances on my JK.)

8. Torquing the pinion nuts is a debatable topic. You should probably search through the many threads on this subject to make sure you understand all of the opinions. One extreme is to re-do the crush sleeve on each differential to make sure that the bearing pre-load is to spec. The other extreme is to install the pinion nuts using an impact gun, basically by feel. My choice, after talking with Curtis, was to use the impact gun, with the gun regulator set to its lowest setting, and then torquing the nut until the impact just began to hammer. So far I haven't had any problems; but, I fully understand the risks of doing that with respect to the bearing pre-load. If the pre-load isn't enough there will be problems, and if it is too much there will be problems. I believe I took a logical approach that has been used by a lot of people (including those on other custom car forums).

9. I would paint a reference line across each pinion nut and shaft as a point of reference, regardless of how you torque the nuts, and check it after a few hundred miles and after any hard wheeling, just to make sure it was torqued tight enough.

10. I torqued the transfer case nuts to 90/100 ft-lbs using a torque wrench.

11. I would not recommend using a torque wrench to remove pinion nuts. I do believe that would be putting some unnecessary stress on the wrench, and might affect its calibration.

12. Use red Locktite on the pinion and transfer case.

13. Use blue Locktite for other fastener threads (such as the u-joint connecting bolts).

14. You might want to consider lubricating the CV joint through the reverse-zerk on the inside of the joint before you bolt it up. I don't know for sure, but, I would think that the CV is lubed at Tatton; but, this will give you knowledge of where you need to go to lube it in the future.

I went throught this pretty quick, so I hope there isn't anything that I have left out. If there is, I will add it later. If you have any questions, post back here, or send me a PM.

FWIW... I was glad that I did mine myself.

Good Luck

Jeff

 

Hi Elirojas,

If all of your fasteners are torqued, if your yokes are properly installed, and if your pinion angle is set correctly, I would suspect the balance of the driveshaft.

I know this probably isn't the case; but, you might also want to make sure that the yokes were installed at their proper location. There is a difference between the yokes for the transfer case and for the pinion. (I don't even know if they can be installed incorrectly; but, I do know that they were marked with respect to their correct locations.)

I would recommend calling Teraflex if you're sure the install was done correctly.

I hope this helps.

Jeff

 

Hi 08{GA}RUBICON,

Can you tell where the leak is coming from? Does it drip from behind the yoke, close to the transfer case, or is it dripping through the yoke?

I'm not sure I can answer your question; but, I am thinking about the advice that I was given to use silicone sealant on the nut to prevent any leaks through the yoke.

Jeff