• Hi Guest!
    You can help ensure that British Car Forum (BCF) continues to provide a great place to engage in the British car hobby! If you find BCF a beneficial community, please consider supporting our efforts with a subscription.
    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

TR6 Replacing the IRS u-joints on a TR6

Share this page

6TTR3A

6TTR3A

Jedi Warrior
Country flag
Offline
Any tricks/pitfalls involved with changing out the IRS u-joints on a six?
I'm comfortable working on sidescreen Triumphs, but I've never
been under a six.
A friend asked me to help him with the job but I have a feeling
it will be him helping me.
I suggested changing out all of them including the drive shaft set,
since they haven't been looked at in the 10 years he has owned the car.

:confuse:
Any suggestions from you "Six-Pac" guys and gals will be appreciated.

FRank C (6TTR3A)
 
Hate to say I chickened out, and had a local driveline shop put in the U joints. I supplied the joints, and they put them in for a very reasonable price. I found taking them out relatively easy, you might want to have replacement rubber covers standing by. Good time to check the 6 studs as well.

Not sure if it's possible to pull the driveshaft without dropping the diff. I'll wait for someone with more experience to chime in on that one.... Have fun!
 
The drive shaft will come out w/o pulling the diff. I have done those plus the rear drive train, NBD except for the part of laying on your back under a car. I hate that.
 
Hubs come off easy but, big but, they can't be rebuilt easily and when they go back on torque is, I think from memory, 16 lbs, not much easy to strip. Most put in Heilcoils or such. Weak point on 4A and 6. I did Heilcoils and reluctantly spent the $ for Goodparts hubs. Really the only thing way out of budget but didn't want to have the wheels fall off.
 
smaceng said:
How hard is it to pull the hubs?
Scott in CA
Click to expand...
Removing the hubs from the trailing arms in the condition that you see in the picture I posted involves removing the brake drum, 6 nuts and a gaiter strap. The procedure is covered in the manuals.
 
My suggestion : If it ain't broke, don't fix it !

No reason a U-joint can't last forever, as long as they are kept lubed.
 
Hi,

Of my 6 u-joints, some have grease zerks and some do not. Also, for the two u-joints on the outer axle shaft, there is not enough clearance to get the grease gun in there so I can't grease them. Any tips or advice on this?

Also, are all u-joints made alike? If not, what brand is recommended and size do they take? I've see Richard at GoodParts recommends Neapco u-joints.

GoodParts offers an upgraded axle shaft/hub kit which replaces the u-joints and sliding splines with CV joints. It's a beautiful set up which solves three problems:
-no clunk from worn u-joints
-no "twitch" from frozen sliding splines
-HD hub which upgrades (what some people say are) very weak ("dangerous") stock hubs.

The only downside is the expense!

Bob
 
As far as greasing the outer U-joints, you might do it as part of your routine greasing of the sliding splines.

 
Ah, good idea. I always took the sliding spline apart from the differential side. I'd unbolt it from the diff and slide the female piece off. Pulling the hub may be slightly more work but, at least you're not on your back under the car.

Bob
 
Does any one know if I were to disconect the hub from the trailing arm and the axle shaft connection from the differential, can you slide the entire axle shaft (w/ both u-joints) out as a single unit through the trailing arm hole?

Bob
 
Bob,

You should as that's how I used to remove them.

If you have installed a TR6 half-shaft with the plastic(?) shield for the inner-most u-joint (or updated your TR4A half-shafts with them), I don't know if that makes this more difficult or not.

Scott
 
Back
Top