About the only thing that may be a bit difficult, is to remove the 'staked' metal that holds the universal joint in, after that, you can press out the old universal joint with a common arbor press, and a couple of sockets.
I've been told that the universal joint bathed in gear oil, should not have any issues for a long time, a lot longer than you get out of the OEM universal joint.
The joint design isn't the most robust.
I was able to watch as the driveshaft I got for the 90 had its UJ replaced a while back. It wasn't rocket science but care must be exercised for it to be successful.
The Uj's specifications for auto use is, believe it or not, for the steering column into the steering box on some cars!! However reliability etc doesn't seem to be an issue as they get plenty of miles out of them, if not as much as stock. In fact, I've seen some stock staking allow the joint cups to drift outward, that can't happen the way the cups are held in when replaced.
I was so confident after seeing how it was done I wanted to try for myself, so I bought a cheap shaft off ebay and gave it a go. After confirming on V blocks the shaft was straight, I Dremelled the staking off all four joints, then drove the cups out from the inside out. This left the spider that took a few seconds (like wire puzzles) to figure how it would release from the ends.Remove the cups from the new spider and install in the ends, gently push in the cups from all four sides with G cramps till they meet a few mm before taking up any sideway slop.
At this point a 4 jaw chuck in a lathe helped with centreing, pressing in the cups till all play was gone and the shaft ran true (very important). I then made some washers up that sat in the spaces on top of the cups, and larger washers that sat on them. The smaller inner washers can safely be a few 10ths of a mm thicker than the depth of the cup hollows as the larger washers will be placed on top of these and then they are MIG'ed at a few points around, holding everything in place. A little grinding of the larger washer is needed to ensure good clearances in the swingarm.
The latter MIGing is all I have to get done to finish the job, but I foresee no problems at this stage as all swivels free with no notches, just like a bought one!! The joint also came packed with grease, which I left in as it couldn't hurt, and I could have even fitted a grease nipple supplied with the joint, but instead I left off to allow oil to enter the hole when running.
Bill.....................;-)
