by Allen Teal

Created on: January 14, 2010

Unless you drive a car or a pickup with rear wheel drive, you should not have to worry about universal joints on your car. Front wheel drive cars have their own shortcomings, but universal joints are not among them. Autos and trucks with rear wheel drive have long drive shafts that extend from the back of the transmission to the rear end on the vehicle.

At the beginning and end of this drive shaft sits a universal joint.

Universal joints are a simple marvel of ingenuity that allow for there to be small differences in the alignment of the transmission and rear end. Essentially, a universal joint is a cross with a cap on each spoke that is filled with roller bearings and grease. Replacing one is not difficult for anyone who has even a small amount of mechanical ability.

Basically, you replace a universal joint whenever it fails.

Failing universal joints tend to manifest themselves in one of three ways. The first way to tell if your universal joint is needing replaced happens when you hear a repetitive groaning sound coming from under your car as you drive. This could be more of a clunking sound if the joint is really bad. Sometimes, before the joint reaches the groaning stage, you will feel excessive vibrating as you drive. It will often be more noticeable at higher speeds, but not always. The third and final way to know if a universal joint is ready for replacement is when your drive shaft falls off the car at one end or the other. Hopefully, you will have diagnosed the issue before this happens.

It can be a good idea to replace a universal joint at other opportunities.

Since universal joints are not a particularly expense part, you may choose to replace this part when having other servicing done. If you have to have the drive shaft removed for any reason, you should consider putting in new universal joints at that time since it will require very little additional labor cost to do so. If your universal joints have been in place for 80,000 or 100,000 miles, you should replace them before taking a trip of any significant length. This will help you to avoid costly repair bills while you are travelling.

You can easily replace the universal joints yourself.

Start by getting an alignment on the universal joint so that the two caps that you want to deal with are nearly horizontal to each other. To achieve this, you may need to move the vehicle backwards or forwards an inch or two to rotate the universal joint. Use needle nose or snap ring pliers to compress the

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