Hi,

I've taken the plunge and I'm overhauling my syncro's driveshaft
(prop. shaft). Yup, into the realm of hearsay, anecdote, and voodoo.

The old U-joints were stock VW, missing rubber seals and tangible
play in one of them. (It was my first time pressing/banging out U-
Joints and I sought advice from the web. www.vanagon.com,
www.syncro.org and http://vanagonsyncroproject-herman.blogspot.com/,
and some posts on a Samba forum)

I found that i could not push out the cups as far as some have
described, only got them out 3 mm or thereabouts. I had to drive cups
further with narrow punch applied on inboard end of cup.

For replacement joints I used Precision (brand) #813. Around $46 can.
each. They are made in Japan and come with a grease nipple. The
grease nipple can not be used as it comes, as they u join yokes are
to "shallow" and the nipple interferes. If I had the right die, or I
was better at threading, I would have machined the nipple so that it
sat lower in the joint. And if I had right sized bolt on hand I would
have plugged nipple hole with it. As it turned out I had to do a
little crude machining and tapping to fit the bolt(s) I had on hand
into modified grease nipple (zerk), in essence making the grease
nipple into a reducing bushing.

Putting U-Joints back together is so much nicer than separating them.
The joints come with 2 thickness' of circlips. I put the thinner ones
in, after supper I'll check  endplay to see if they need the thicker
clips, or even shimming (I doubt shimming)

the old joints did have some shim stock between circlip and bearing
cap, previous owner? he did admit to greasing them.

I am tempted to machine new bronze bushings for the rubber doughnut
end of the drive shaft. But I can not feel any play in that end when
shaft inserted though i suspect I need to apply more force, hard to
do with drive shaft on bench.

Then once all is together, and shaft repainted, I'll delve into the
world of driveshaft alignment and then on to driveshaft balancing on
the cheap :)

Alistair