I have a quick question for ya'll. I have front and rear Tom Woods double cardan (CV) drive shafts and havent lubed them since install (about 4000 miles ago). I also have a rather loud squeaking coming from under the Jeep while moving, that increases in frequency as I accelerate and correspondingly decreases when I decelerate. I think that the drive shaft U-joints are causing all this squeaking under my Jeep. I was just gonna crawl under there tomorrow and lube em up real good with some Mobil 1 lithium grease via my grease gun, but I was wondering if this squeaking is a sign of a failing U-joint or just an under lubed one. Thanks for any and all responses guys!

 

[h=3]Not impressed with Tom Woods[/h]

 

There was another thread on TW DS and there were a lot of complaints about them particularly not being lubed from the factory and failing prematurely. You can lube the u-joints fairly easily but you will need to pull both shafts to access the CV joint on the double cardon to lube them. And you will need a needle tip fitting for your grease gun to grease them. They are impossible to access without pulling them. Don't wait even a day to take care of this.

Also, they do not use Spicer u-joints.

 

You will probably want to pull the shafts off so you can get to the needle zerk (you will need a special adapter for it) inside the double cardan end. While they are out, grease all the zerks, rotate/manipulate all 4 joints to check for binding, and extend/contract to check the slip joints.

To narrow down your problem, you could just pull one shaft off at a time and go for a quick drive to listen for the noise.

 

Ok thanks guys. So it doesnt sound like a failing joint to ya'll, just a un-lubed one? Any particular needle tip for the center zerk? And what size zerk fittings are the others? Sorry for all the secondary questions, I just wanna get this right the first time, but then again it sounds like I kinda messed up already by going with TW. Ill be pulling them in the AM to do this, Ill let you know how it all pans out. Thanks again.

 

First post in this thread
https://www.jk-forum.com/forums/show...ht=needle+zerk

 

If it's squeaking, it's most likely the center ball of the cv joint. Ussually when a u-joint starts to go out it starts ticking and if not taken care of quickly is followed by a KAPOW!

 

Personal recommendation? This is on the wishlist but have no experiance with aftermarket drive shafts.

 

X2. Its the ball of the Cv joint. You will need to drop the shaft to grease it. Also now that it has gotten to the squeaking stage it is probally only a matter of time before it is finished. I would call tom woods and try to get them to fix it. If they will?

 

Yep, concur on the CV joint. I ignored a squeaking tailshaft CV on a vehicle a while back and one day when I floored it from standstill it just went BANG & I was up for a new shaft.