Front Drive Shaft - The Case of the Angry Sparrows

[Herezja]

So, as some of you had noticed and chimed in on, I was looking for a new front driveshaft for my Rubi. After a visit to the mounds and then a visit soon after to Silver Lake, I was getting an obnoxious rattling sound coming from the front of the Jeep. After a bit of diagnosis between myself and Mumbly's Offroad, we narrowed the issue down to the spline shaft within the front driveshaft. Thinking I was going to have to replace the entire shaft and fretting about the prices of even used driveshafts these days, I started looking online to find out if there was any type of replacement or rebuild kit type thingy for the inner spline shaft. Not so much! But I did find that this is a fairly common problem and actually has a name....Angry Sparrows. I guess, as it turns out this spline shaft is greaseable (although there are no actual grease fittings) and it really doesn't come greased very well from the factory. So I cut the rings on the dust boot and moved it the best I could (it gives about 1.5 inches on each end when you slide the boot), shoved my grease gun inside the boot and gave it a VERY healty dose of waterproof grease...being very careful not to rip or tear the boot itself (I did plan on using black gasket maker to repair any tears in the boot that I may have caused, but it turned out to be pretty durable when I started moving it around). Once the spline shaft was all greased up, I put the boot back in place and secured it with two zip ties on each end. And whaddya know....no more angry sparrows...well at least so far so good!!

So I thought I would post this up in case anyone else runs into this issue. Personally over the 14 years I have owned Jeeps, I had never heard of the Angry Sparrows, nor had I ever given that spline shaft and/or dust boot on the front driveshaft much thought. From what I understand, this is a non-serviceable part at the dealership and is easily remedied....and much cheaper than buying a new (or used) front driveshaft.

 ::Jeep::

[Paul Hittie]

Nice write up - of all of the parts I have worn out/broken/mangled/used up on my Jeep over the last few years, the front driveshaft has never been on the list.  I have it on my winter "to-do" list, primarily because I have never even replaced the u-joints in the fron driveshaft.

[jeepfan1974]

you might want to drill a hole on the collar of the shaft and install a grease fitting

[Herezja]

Nice write up - of all of the parts I have worn out/broken/mangled/used up on my Jeep over the last few years, the front driveshaft has never been on the list.  I have it on my winter "to-do" list, primarily because I have never even replaced the u-joints in the fron driveshaft.

Well, I had banged one of the rings that held the boot pretty good on a rock at the Mounds and bent it a little providing an opening for dust, sand, etc to get in. I didn't really notice it at the time, but after going to the Mounds, running up and down the dirt road that I live on, and getting some sand up in there at Silver Lake....it all kinda makes sense that I would have dried the grease up on that spline shaft pretty well.