ujoints surface rust

[krisnowicki]

pulled my outdrive today to do the gimbal ring. I found a lot a fresh water in my bellows. IT has been there for 2-4 days. The ujoints have a very little bit of surface rust on the enought o were i rub it comes of with out sand paper or if i put grease on it disapears. Should I lighlty sand these things before greasing them up or do i need to replace them?

[krisnowicki]

ps. Obviuosly I am replacing all the bellows and gaskets too

[Fishermark]

Just because u-joints get wet doesn't mean they are bad. Keep in mind the same u-joints are used on cars and they get wet all the time. If there is any "slop" to them, then by all means replace them. If they are nice and tight I would say leave well enough alone.

[45Auto]

Just wondering how you can tell how long the water has been in the bellows? How do you know it hasn't been leaking since the last time the drive was pulled?

Reason I'm asking is cause when my drive was pulled last year for maintenance it was put back on with a kink in the gasket. Found it out when the gimbal bearing went bad this summer. Had service rust on the shaft and u-joints just like you. U-joints felt fine, but changed them anyway. Good thing I did, out of the 8 sets of rollers (2 u-joints) 4 of them were rusty and grooving the bearing surface.

[krisnowicki]

i had the drive off four days ago... And today there sis water