U shaped washers on prop shaft univerisal joints.

Hi,

I put my prop back together at the weekend, recon VCU and new bearings. It's ready to bolt back on the car now. My only question is this....I followed Hippo's howto guide on replacing the VCU bearings. The U shaped washers have a little noggin on one side - Hippo says these are to stop the washer from falling out....however there is no place for the noggin to rest, like a corresponding dimple or hole...so I've tightened up the bolts nice and tight (I didn't know how you'd get a torque wrench in place, only a ring spanner will fit in the gap????) and the U shaped washer is now a little bent like a banana cause the noggin has no place to go.

I did a lot of head scratching but concluded the the splines on the old VCU didn't poke as far though the end of the UJ so a small gap was left....if you know what I mean. Or perhaps I put too much torque on them!

Any thoughts, shall I leave it as it is?

Cheers.

The spline shouldn't poke thru! Think you need to rethink! I may crawl under mine but it's a bit muddy

Diesel Do said:

The spline shouldn't poke thru! Think you need to rethink! I may crawl under mine but it's a bit muddy

Click to expand...

Well it doesn't poke out the end exactly - it just goes pretty much flush with the end of the UJ female spline bit. I inspected the the old VCU carefully and I could see a small mark on the end of the splines where the noggin on the U shaped washer had tightened up against it. I may just be being a bit over cautious on this but it did seem to be a poor job, but I could not think how else if would have gone back together.