Had my 1310 rubicon express front driveshaft in a shop a few weeks ago for a rebalance and new ujoints. Cost me about $270.

Today I found out there's a ton of play in the slip spline. Have no idea what it would cost to repair this but suspect this is still causing some slight vibrations.

Should I keep putting money into repairing this ds or buy a new one?

Anyone have any experience with these RE ds's and know if they are garbage?

Thanks

 

I run tom woods and they about $600 each (ouch) but have held up good. IMHO if your Rubicon Express shaft is around that cost then get a new one. You dont want to see what happens when a shaft comes loose at speed. BIG $$$$$$$$

 

1350's ?

Woods and Coast 1310's are $450





Did you get new yokes? Or still using stock flanges?
Personally, I would be tempted to call Woods or Coast and see about a custom built shaft using your 'new' joints. Or see what your local shop can come up with. Kinda like continuing to dump more and more money into a D30...

 

I dunno who they have make em, but my buddy with a tj has the same prob with re ds. They're chapter 11, so don't look for any help from them. Just get a new one from another company. One that hasn't gone belly up owing alotta people money and giving a big F'u to warranty issues.

 

New yoke at tcase and stock flange at the pinion in the front. Rear has stock flanges at tcase and pinion. So it may be better to have someone locally build a custom shaft for my particular setup?

 

I vote for new. Failure in this case could mean CATASTROPHIC failure.

 

I talked to another local driveline shop today(not the one I had the rebalance done at) and they said it would be about $250 to replace the slip spline and about $500 to get me a new custom ds which I think I'm going to do.

 

A friend of mine had a CJ-5 in college. The front d/s let loose at the front u-joint in North Shreveport at about 55mph on LA-1/North Market. Can you say POGO STICK? The carnage was not pretty...of course we don't let this guy have tools anymore after he tried to disassemble the entire front axle to change a bad d/s and u-joints.

 

Man that sucks! We have a Coast 1350 and have had our local driveline place rework them saving costs...but it looks like your shop is expensive. We had the rear rebuilt with new centering ball and 1 u-joint with rebalance for less than $200. And just yesterday the front had a bad u-joint replaced and rebalance and that was $97.

You might be at that point where doing another rebuild (at those shop cost) makes it more feasible to get a new one especially if they come back with similar rebuild costs as your last visit.

 

Thanks MK, you just had to bring that up again about RE just when I was getting calmed down about the whole screwed up deal.
I have RE front and rear shafts and fortunately they have really taken the abuse well. I would just go ahead and replace if you can. Personal preference would be Tom Woods.

Now I'm off to bed to have whacked out dreams about RE. ( I'm taking the stop smoking pill Chantix, so gives me some pretty messed up dreams, Thanks MK)