So let’s start with the CV joints. If you’re sure your CV joints are in good shape, then I like to wrap them in trash bags as soon as I pull the driveshaft off the car so they don’t get contaminated. They can stay on the ends of the driveshaft the whole time it’s being rebuilt, just make sure they’re wrapped up. If you want to change your CV joints, boots or just pull them off to clean them and re-grease them, all you have to do is remove the snap ring on the end of the driveshaft and then the whole CV joint can be slid off.
First you want to mark your driveshaft so that it goes back together the same way. The driveshaft is balanced and if you reassemble it exactly the same, you won’t have to worry about rebalancing it. I used a white sharpie to mark mine in the image below.
I like to start by splitting the driveshaft in half by removing the bolt in the center. It will make it easier to work on the u-joint later so the driveshaft isn’t hanging way off the press. This is the bolt I’m talking about:
You’re going to want to do this to your 17mm wrench… Owning a B5 Audi, this matches half the other tools in my box lol
Block the driveshaft from turning by placing a breaker bar here and then work that bolt loose with your modified 17mm wrench.
You’ll have to loosen the bolt a little bit, and then hammer the driveshaft any way you can to get it to start separating… Then loosen the bolt a bit more, work the driveshaft further apart, and keep doing that until the bolt can fully be removed and the driveshaft can be separated into two pieces. There’s no pretty way to do this besides beating the center of the driveshaft with a hammer and extension or anything to get it to pull apart.
Now you can get the trashed center bearing off. I used my press to do this, but you don’t need to, you can wedge a tool in there and hammer it off. I tightened up my bearing splitter between the center bearing and driveshaft (being careful to only clamp the bearing and not the driveshaft) and pressed it off like so.
Also keep track of the orientation of your center bearing, it can only go back on one way.
And now the fun part… Some people have changed u-joints without a press, but I’m telling you right now, if you don’t have any kind of shop press for this part, you will hate your life. First mark your driveshaft and yoke so that you can reassemble it the same way to keep the driveshaft balance. It’s a little tricky to remove the old u-joint and I only took pictures of how I removed it from the yoke, but the same method will be used to remove it from the driveshaft and the yoke. Support it on the press with a 1” socket on one side (If I remember correctly), that way the one bearing cap can get pushed through and into the socket, and then press on the opposite bearing cap with an appropriate size socket. Pretty much you’re trying to scoot the u-joint as far as you can towards one side of the driveshaft.
Now support it like in the picture below, put the 1” socket on top to press on so that the u-joint bearing cap on the opposite side gets pushed out of the yoke so it looks like this.
The two bearing caps on opposite sides have been pushed out as far as they can and now you can barely fit the u-joint out or separate the yoke from the driveshaft. This same process is used to first get the yoke off the driveshaft and then get the u-joint off the yoke. If you’re still having trouble getting the u-joint out using this method, you can always bust out the Dremel and cut out the bearing caps to give the u-joint more room. Reassembling it is much easier. Here’s what my trashed u-joint looked like once removed.
So Audi does not sell just the u-joint. I found one u-joint size that would work which is a 24x74.5mm u-joint for a KIA or Mercedes Sprinter Van. This is the one that I bought and it fit perfectly: https://www.amazon.com/493002B500-Un...00+-+Universal
Start by installing the new u-joint on the yoke. Line it up and press one bearing cap in until it’s flush.
Now you can press the opposite bearing cap in and it will now be held in the yoke.
Now take the other two bearing caps off and fit it into the driveshaft. The needle bearings are not supported in the bearing caps so be careful not to spill them everywhere when you pull the caps off… I learned this the hard way and had to go on a little needle bearing hunt. Once you’ve got it positioned in the driveshaft you can press in those last two bearings from the outside.
The last thing you have to do is make sure the u-joint is centered in the driveshaft. The u-joint is 74.5 mm from one end to the other, so you have to measure the width of the driveshaft at each section, subtract the length of the u-joint, divide by 2 and then that’s how far the bearing cap will need to be recessed in that section. For example let’s say I measured the driveshaft to be 77 mm wide on one section so I subtract 74.5, divide by 2 and then I know I need to recess one bearing cap 1.25mm in. The best way to do this is to find coins that are close to this measurement, put the coin on one side and then press the opposite bearing cap until it stops. This will leave your u-joint perfectly centered if you measured it right. I used a nickel for one section and a penny for the other.
And now your u-joint is centered and you can reassemble the center bearing and reconnect the driveshaft. The factory u-joint doesn’t have a snap ring to hold it in, it looks like Audi just pushed some metal in from the edge of the bearing cap bore to kind of hold it in when they made the driveshaft. I didn’t use a snap ring or anything at all. It’s a pretty tight press-fit so there’s no way that u-joint is coming out of there. I’ve been driving on this driveshaft for 5,000 miles and have hit 135mph a couple times and haven’t lost the driveshaft yet!
When you install your new center bearing, use a 27mm deep socket to tap the bearing back in. You can get the 034 center bearing or this one which is way cheaper: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Audi-A4-B5-...DICB:rk:2:pf:0
I’m not sure if the 034 one is really much better. The bearing isn’t a very tight fit, so it doesn’t take much work to tap it in, but the 27mm socket is a really tight fit and you’ll have to work it back and forth to get it off. Then line up the two pieces of the driveshaft to where you marked them and use the 17mm bolt to pull the driveshaft back together. Tighten the bolt fairly tight, it doesn’t have to be cranked down really hard and then you are finished and your driveshaft is good to go! I haven’t been getting any new drivetrain vibrations and I’ve been driving on this setup for a while and it has been working great. Let me know if there’s any questions!
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With the aftermarket support bearings it’s kind of hit or miss. I bought one a couple years ago that always made bearing noise whenever it was cold and after a couple minutes of driving, it’d warm up and stop. This one works perfectly and doesn’t make any noise at all. It sucks we can’t get OEM ones and at less than $40 we’re kind of taking a gamble, but I haven’t seen the rubber fail on one of those aftermarket ones yet.
Originally Posted by okkim
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