Universal joint broke

I don’t think so friend. All mine have the nipple to insert grease. And I just had a rear driveline repaired and it came with 2 brand new U-joints with the nipples on it.

 

Throw a pic up of the u joint and yoke. Without seeing it there is no way to give an accurate failure analysis

 

He did.... 3rd post .....

 

My analysis says it’s definitely broke. Notice it looks like new otherwise, as in no grease. Mine has grease in it , on it , around it , and in frame above it slung out all over the place. Lol. Add a rear main seal leak. It ain’t a pretty sight but keeps the rust away.

 

For what it's worth, in the future look and listen for signs one might show when its on it's way out such as a shudder at low speeds when accelerating or decelerating and usually accompanied by a chirping sound at the same time. Like other said, good to crawl under and grab a hold of them as well once in awhile

 

All moving parts stand still.Eventually
.That definitely looks like a casting defect or a small crack that became a large one.I was taught,never trust the shop(or the mechanic),especially maintenance tasks cause those jobs usually go to low man in the shop,spell that least experienced and least paid.I'm one of those guys when I get a PM, I want to watch while it's done or if I can't watch I'll check everything before I travel.I also keep a trigger(1hand squeeze) type grease gun in my sidebox for things that might get warm or loose.I'm just silly like that.I just know when something goes wrong the driver is the 1st one looked at.

 

I missed that for sure.





What I'm seeing is looks like no grease, but notice the ends of the u joint are broke off inside cups with needle bearings still in tact. Lack of grease wont cause that. Lack of grease would shell the needles first then wear into the cups. Lack of grease would also cause the metal to turn blue from heat.

 

So what does that mean? Just becuase the all mighty remote

you’re right. I don’t drive new trucks

 

OP when I was a temp driver I had a customer who did not do any maintenance on their trucks unless someone like me (temp driver) complained about something (which we all did), they had an old pete (1987) which was just so bad that the deck on the truck was soooo rotted you could not walk on it and patched with diamond plate. I was told never to pre-trip the drive line by my bosses, so I never did.

One day I did four runs with this truck, nothing too heavy until the last load - that came up to 43000 on the deck. I got back after dropping the die set off and the foreman of the shop went out to move the truck as I was leaving and I heard BOOM and sounding like a whirlybird was trapped under the truck. The front drive shaft ujoints on both ends fell apart with the front part of the driveshaft was caught on the yoke and whirling around slamming into everything. That truck was no longer road worthy with the amount of damage it sustained.

 

Be glad it happened where it did. A U-joint is cheap, if it happened going down the road, it could have damaged the drive shaft, which isn't cheap. I think you just had a defective part, especially since you said it's an automated transmission. If it were a manual, dumping the clutch could snap a driveline, but unless the transmission has issues, they don't dump the clutch. We gross 75-80k all the time with a Mack mDrive...and some of the places we go are tougher on equipment than what you could have been in the short time you had the truck. If I were your boss, I wouldn't hesitate to place blame on a defective part, apologize for putting you in a truck with issues, pay you some breakdown, and get you back on the road ASAP.