jim hensley

Just noticed I tore my rear drive shaft boot. Don't see any grease slinging. How long do I have before I have to replace it or do I need to replace it? Jeep is a four door with a 3 & 1/2 inch coil lift and a 1 inch spacer 37 inch meats.

GreenJK07

Are you talking about the boot in the center of the shaft or the boot by the transfer case?

If you tore the boot in the center of the shaft, there is no grease in there and it is only there to keep debris out of the shaft where it extends and contracts. If this boot is torn, you do not need to replace your shaft, but I would make sure it doesn't get clogged up with dirt and grime after you go wheeling. It can get stuck and not allow the shaft to contract and extend. When I ran my factory shafts, I ran my front shaft for over 4 years with no boot on it. All I did was wipe it down after wheeling and slapped some axle grease around it. Never had an issue...

On the other hand, if you tore the transfer case boot. You will need to replace the shaft right away, especially if you see no grease. If you don't, it will cause a driveline vibration and take out the shaft and possibly your transfer case. If all of the grease is out if the boot, it would be splattered all over the tub above the transfer case and shaft.

Mark Doiron

Or the differential, for that matter. Regardless, what GreenJK07 wrote, just want to point out that you can now rebuild the Rzeppa joints (the ones at either end). Not sure why anyone with 4.5" of lift would do that, since it will fail again--you need a proper DS with U-joints to handle those angles--but just in case money is tight right now ...

Crown Automotive 528533FRK - Drive Shaft CV Joint Repair Kit for 07-14 Jeep® Wrangler & Wrangler Unlimited JK - Quadratec

dcharge74

You can repair the slip shaft boot now also. Check out the last few pages of the new Qtec catalog. Its got all the repair part numbers for the entire JK drive line and steering components.:

jim hensley

It is the boot in the center of the shaft. Thanks for all of the great information. Not ready to spend $600 plus for a new drive shaft at the moment. I'll look into replacing the boot but it looks like it is easily torn when climbing over rocks.

MtraXX

Annnnnd mine was just fine until this weekend wheeling with Jim so I'll blame him! Lol...

Glad to hear it doesn't need to be replaced right away.

dcharge74

I saw the pictures from this weekend. It looks like you guys did Pizza Rock. I'll go out on a limb and say thats where it happened. I've seen quite a few guys tear up their rear spline shaft boot by dragging the ass end up onto that ledge. Do you have candy cane spiral scrape running up the length of your driveshaft?

MtraXX

I wouldn't rule out Pizza since I noticed mine after the little black run that's just after it.....

Sunnysideup

Also if you watch on the sale section of the forum... or on e-bay... you can get a low milage rear shaft for about 50 bucks. If you want to replace it- it's an easy thing to do!

I tore mine up and glued up with black silicone. keeps water and mud and stuff out. temp fix.. and then picked up a shaft with 15,000 miles on it to replace it 50 bucks....

Glue should work until you decide what you would like to do!