When Driveshafts Attack

I was moving my first trailer load of house stuff for the day, nicely driving out of Ellenbrook when all of a sudden there was the load bang underneath my Jeep followed by a constant whacking and loss of forward momentum. I new instantly what it was, a driveshaft blow out! Pulled over and stuck my head under the Jeep to see the drive shaft hanging down in shame as the rear u-joint had let loose. On close inspection the clamp bolts into the yoke where loose with no sign of any threadlocker. WTF! The guys that installed the SYE must have missed the “apply threadlocker” step. I bashed the crap out my muffler when it let loose, maybe a good excuse for an upgrade.

Went into bush mechanic mode and slung the shaft up so it would turn and not thrash the Jeep to death and managed to limp home in front wheel drive mode. Very sad, took 40 minutes to travel what would have normally have taken 5 minutes.

$38 for a new u-joint from 4WD USA.

Moral of this story? Preventative maintenance. Check that your NUTS are tight! or more correctly bolts in this case.