CV Ball Assembly (Jeep TJ)

I found myself having a loud squeak when driving that was progressively getting worse with time.  Without going into the details of the symptoms I realized I was experiencing angry sparrows.  Do a search on the Web and you'll find plenty of examples and info.  Here I'm going to tell you a few things about my experience to shed some additional light on the subject.

First, the sound itself is exactly like the name, a bunch of birds going at it angrily.  It was coming from my front drive shaft.

Second, the cause was with the double cardan cv ball assembly that sits in between the two u joints in the H yoke.  And I found it goes by many names depending on who and where you are talking with/looking.

Here's the names I found:

• CV Ball Assembly
• Centering ball
• Ball centering assembly/kit
• Cross yoke
• Centering yoke
• CV centering yoke
• Double Cardan Joint Ball Seating Kit
• Double Cardan (CV) Centering Yoke
• CV Socket Yoke

Third, having a ball joint press made pressing out and in the new u joints incredibly easy.  Much better than a hammer, socket, and general c-clamp.  I rented one for free from the local auto part store ($100 set normally.)

Forth, never, ever, I repeat, never try to repair the cv ball assembly by buying a CV ball repair kit.  Its not worth the pain and time.  There are no real tools for doing this easily.  I've read posts from drive shaft shop experts telling stories of how easy they use to do it then explain how they work on dozen of these things a week.  The biggest pain I found personally, and from people online, was with the brace for the ball.  It seizes to the cv ball  base.  (Pics coming soon as was in the middle of making this mistake.)

CV Ball Assembly Spring

 (Be care when removing the CV Ball Assembly.  This will fall out easily)

Two of the ~28 needle bearings in the ball

The drive shaft pin and seal that sits in the middle of the H yoke (double cardan) before it was cleaned up

The drive shaft pin and seal that sits in the middle of the H yoke (double cardan) after it was cleaned up

Here's the front drive shaft after pressing in the new Spicer u joint and re-installing on the Jeep.

P.S. if you jump ahead of what I wrote here and buy the part, don't trouble yourself with getting a greasable cv ball assembly.  Its incredibly difficult to grease it even with the needle adapter for the grease gun,  It sits in the middle of the H yoke between the two u joints.

Some part details:

SPI-211544X : Stock nongreasable CV assembly replacement by Spicer
2-86-418 : Seal for the nongreasable CV assembly (sits on the driveshaft pin; see pics above)
SPI-5-153X : Spicer greasable U-joint
617 (Advance Auto parts) : Moog repair kit for the nongreasable CV ball assembly
NEA-7-0081 : Neapco repair kit for the greasable CV ball assembly (not stock; only if upgraded)

 ...more to come in the week ahead