riped the driveshaf out this morn, got the old u joint out, went to put in the new one. ist half went ok, second half..not good. the caps cound not be pressed in far enough to get both clip on..about 1/8" too wide. ground a hair of eack cap..still no go... had a friend fly me to a dealership before they closed to buy a mopar one. ( i'm a one vehice owner). new one went great. NAPA part # 295. DO NOT USE IF YOU WANT YOUR DAY TO GO GOOD.( on line and the part guy showed it was the correct part, when i bought them)

 

Did one of the needles fall over and prevent the cap from going on all the way? It's a common problem.

 

needles were fine, actually.

 

I had the same troubles on a friends, once put together the last circle clip wouldn't go on. Took it back apart, lightly sanded the inside of the driveline surface where the caps go. And voila, it fit just fine. Doesn't make sense but it worked.

I also used the same joints on my truck without the cleaning and had no problems. Probably just a minor intolerance in manufacturing on both driveline and u-joint.

 

i was a strong 1/8" off to get the clips in. i started grinding the caps down, but it would have been deeper than flush.. bunch of b.s

 

My first set of Napa joints wouldn't fit into the yokes with the caps off. The second set that was for the Dodge and not an Excursion went in flawlessly.

 

Did you notice the "Made in China" cast into the NAPA U joints?

 

Seem to remember seeing many posts about this problem in the past and with some folks needing to grind down the caps a little bit.

 

do not grind the ujoints,buy the correct ones,if im not mistaken the 02 was 10thousands of an in to bit,one side fits good and when you try to get the caps on the other side no can do.can get the clips on.been there done that,not alot of people know of this,they try to buy the cheap joint,20 bucks or so, when actually you need the 60 dol one.the guy the redoes my drive shafts and axles told me this info.the 03 and up went to the bigger ujoint,i did the same thing but didnt grind mine .took them back and he figured it out in the book.wasnt to happy bout the cost differance but learned a good lesson.also cant use the cv axles from a earlyer model either. good luck.

 

the joint you needed was P351 not 295

 

I have gone through three rear ujoints on my O3. The original felt rough when I installed my gearvendors so I replaced it with a NAPA ujoint. When I installed my GV. I had a short driveshaft made and I used the flange that bolts up to the pinion flange from the original driveshaft. since then I have had to replace the NAPA ujoint with another NAPA ujoint but I never had any problem getting the retainers in. I believe the ujoints are either 1480s or 1485 The ujoint that gearvendors supplied me for the front of the driveshaft is a 1350 and is quite a bit smaller and I complained to them and said it would never last but it has outlasted a brand new NAPA ujoint and I think it will outlast the second one as well. Both the NAPA ujoints are greasable and so is the 1350 at the front of the drive shaft. I think it is because of axle wrap up that the rear ujoint does not last. The first NAPA ujoint that I bought in Canada was made in the USA and the second one (the one still in the truck) was bought at NAPA in the USA and is made in China. I believe the fellow that said a p361 is the right part number but I looked it up in my log book and I can't read my own writing as it is quite faded and I am a very poor writer but the first digit is a 3.
Jim O