Front axle u-joints: how?

Morning all,

I've looked through the documentation and previous posts in the forum, and still lack the basic confidence for this job - would you mind helping me out?  

I need to replace the u-joints on the front axle of my '85 F150 with 4-wheel drive.  The driver's side is the main concern: it's making lots of awful noise.  I just recently did the wheel bearings so I know some of the components, but I can't figure out:

1-How to get to the u-joints: can I just pull the axle shaft assembly out after removing the spindle, or is there something more to it?  Any differences in how to do this between the driver's side and passenger's side?

2-Sourcing the u-joints: will this be challenging and confusing, or pretty straightforward?  Any tips?

3-Any other tips or suggestions?  

Thanks in advance!
Dave

The left side is straight forward. Once you get the spindle off, you can pull the axle straight out through the hole in the steering knuckle. The right side is slightly more difficult, because the inner stub axle is clipped to the side gear from inside the differential housing. On the right side, pull the axle apart at the slip joint under the boot. Remember to mark the splines before you pull it apart so that the u-joints are phased correctly when you put it together.

If you've changed u-joints before, these are no different, just a bit smaller. You can buy them from any parts store, as they're a commonly replaced part - they shouldn't be hard to find.

Removing the spindle can be tricky.  It "should" just slide out after you've removed the 6(?) bolts, but usually it's rusted in.  You can whack on it with a plastic mallet some, but that's never worked for me.  Or you can rent / borrow a puller.

On the passenger side myrl883 gave you the basics to get at the U-joint that's at the steering knuckle, but there's another U-joint in the middle of the truck.  If your truck is old enough you can unbolt the retainer from the passenger side of the diff housing and get that section of axle out to work on.  If there are no bolt there then you need to open the diff to remove the C-clip to get the shaft out.  That involves pulling the driver's side axle, removing the "cover" bolts on the front of the driver's side swing arm, removing the big bolt (or 2?) from the driver's side of the diff housing and removing it from the swing arm.  It's not a small job, but it's not all that bad either.

However, some people are able to replace that U-joint with it still in the truck using a ball-joint tool (after removing the outer part of axle as myrl883 described).  I've also heard about someone removing the driver's side swing-arm to get it out of the truck.

Thanks for the quick replies.  

Greaseable or not?  I tend to think the former, but would love some feedback.  

I like greaseable. On some axles the u-joints are pretty small, and the only fittings that will have enough clearance are the little flat ones. You have to use a needle tip to grease them, but at least you have the option of servicing them.

Two schools of thought on that.  The greaseable ones are weaker due to being cross-drilled and some people have broken them and won't touch them again (although that's usually people who use their axles hard).

Also some people don't like the fact that you tend to compromise the seals if you add enough grease to get them to bulge out, let alone pushing so much grease in that it pushes old grease out past the seals.

But these U-joints aren't the easiest to get at to replace and "lubed for life" is not the same as "lubed for LONG life", so a lot of people prefer greaseable.

Personally I lean toward greaseable for typical use, but might lean toward non-greaseable on a rock crawler or something that might get more abused.

Greaseable or not is a good question.

I prefer non greaseable, because I think they last longer, but I have no science or data to prove it.

Just what I think.

Thanks everyone - good stuff here.  I grabbed the GMB ones from RockAuto, and hopefully will jump in next weekend.

Dave