Front Prop Shaft Rear CV Recommendations?

[Shane001]

So I replaced this in Sept last year and it's already on the way out, has quite a bit of movement in it. The joint that was in it was OK but the boot was failed and it was almost dry of grease.

Anyway 8mths on and the new one from Rockauto is failing. I went with the SKP brand. Clearly was a bad choice.

The only other option at a more premium price I can find is the Dorman unit, but I've read plenty of negative reviews of Dorman also, and I expect it's also made in China anyway.

Are there any other options?
Don't really want to fork out $500-900 for a complete shaft.

Has anyone used the Dorman?
Good/bad experience?

Thanks.

[5oclock]

Shane001, yes I have been through much the same as you. When I got my WH 3.0crd 18 months or so ago the cv on the rear of the front shaft was stuffed. I replaced it with one from Rockauto. It lasted for about 30,000. Cant remember the brand but I think they are pretty much all the same,just in a different box.Its the same cv in the WG/WJ as well. Anyway when I was replacing the cv I noticed that the grease they supply is almost clear and very thin. Should have chucked it and used Castrol LMM. So same as you found the shit grease leaked out and ruined the cv. So I cleaned up an old cv that was in one of my other Jeeps, but was changed out because it was starting to make some noise. So cleaned it up nice and packed it with Castrol LMM and put silicone on the gaskets. Also the bolts need to be retightened after about 50/100km. Since then(about 20,000km) the previously noisy cv is quite and no grease has leaked out. So my take on it all is...most of the CVs are the same,,,the grease they supply is crap ,,,and the gaskets leak unless you seal them,,and the bolts need retightening soon after a few Kms. Good luck, tell us what works out.

[Shane001]

Thanks yeah I had to do one on my previous WJ and was pretty sure it was the same part number. I used the cheaper option from Rockauto for the WJ and didn't have any issues with it. Seems to be very hit and miss.

Shame this part isn't available as genuine from Mopar, can only buy the entire shaft...

The grease that came with the one i installed last Sept was a thick black grease, same as came with the one I put in my WJ, but yeah think I will silicone the shit out of it this time to make sure no grease can leak out, and maybe get some Castrol grease.

Think I'll order the Dorman, probably end up being exactly the same just 4x more money, but never know, might be better quality. Will find out, figure I need to change it asap before it fails since the WH can't be driven without the front shaft connected (very annoying feature compared to the WJ).

PS: Wish I'd kept my original WJ one, it was fine just for the cracked boot.

[5oclock]

Hey Shane001, I too was a bit disappointed when I found out that the WH will not drive in HI range with out the front shaft, not like the trusty old WG/WJ. Alexbrown64 had a similar run with these cv joints too ( Hi Alex, hope your doing well).
Just changing the subject a touch, to the rear tail shaft....have you looked at the unijoints. Alexbrown64 did a great job on his replacing the " staked " in unis. His posts gave me the courage to take the old uni joints out and replace them. Only thing I did a bit different to Alex was I used epoxy resin between the end caps on the U joints and the tabs I welded on(to retain u joints). On my WH there was a small gap between the caps and the tabs and the epoxy filled this in nice---looked great when finished and painted. I used greasable uni joints as well. Its done 365,000km on the old ones, so she should be OK for a while now.

[Shane001]

Yeah my rear shaft is fine, it's just that front shaft rear cv that is the weak point. I spent a couple of hours researching UK and europe part sites tonight and found a couple of other brands but again they all look to be made in china, probably all from the same factory.

Fingers crossed the Dorman unit is worth the 4x premium.

[Shane001]

Just found this online. Would be the go but don't really want to spend $AU800-900.

https://4xshaft.com/products/wk-grand-cherokee-front-shaft?variant=44133908447550

[Stewatpark]

According to the " Hardy Spicer Driveshaft Component Catalogue " , page B:1 -107

Jeep Grand Cherokee 2007 - 2010 , Front Shaft T/C End .

The Hardy Spicer part number for the CV assembly plunging is " CV-875 "

and the part number for joint and boot is CVJ.CHT4 .

[Shane001]

Received my Dorman CV joint on Monday I think it was. Usual quick turnaround from Rockauto, 8 days including the weekend.
Definitely a different manufacture to the Ultra Power joint I ordered last year, so hopefully this one is better quality.
Also it came with 2x rubber gaskets, vs only 1 thin paper one with the Ultra Power.

Changed them over today. Took the old one off, was almost dry very little grease left in it. It had been spitting out small amounts of grease from when I first installed it last year but I wasn't expecting to find it dry. So no doubt this contributed to the bearing centre starting to fail.

The grease was leaking out from the front cover, either out through the bolts or possibly through the little breather hole (though I wouldn't think it would spit out all the grease through the breather hole, so I suspect was coming out through the bolt threads).

The front cover is where I put the only gasket that came with it, but I think what may have happened, I remember the front and rear caps went on very tight, so I'm thinking it didn't clamp together fully and therefore the gasket didn't actually seal between the cover and the bearing housing, and therefore it leaked. So just a poor quality unit all round.

With the new Dorman, I smeared a thin amount of RTV on one side of the gasket and then pre positioned them in the end cap and the boot cap. Once the bearing housing was packed with grease, I then pre fitted the boot cap to the bearing housing with the bolts in to line it all up, again smearing the gasket with a thin amount of RTV. Then I fitted the boot cap and bearing housing to the shaft together with the bolts keeping them both lined up to each other. The idea was I didn't want the gasket to move if I had to realign them afterward.

Strangely it was a really tight fit on the shaft spline, I had to work it on by lightly tapping around it with a hammer and round punch for about 20mins to get it the last 5-10mm onto the shaft. I did lightly grease the shaft too! So it's gonna be a bitch to get back off.

Again I smeared some RTV on the gasket before putting the end cap on. Plenty of grease in there as a little came out the breather hole once I pushed it all together. I didn't put any extra in the boot end so it should work its way through.

Finally before installing it back in the car, I got the bolts and some nuts and pre tensioned the assembly together to try and make sure the end caps had fully clamped the gasket to the bearing housing.
So now hopefully I won't get any grease leakage and this one will last!

All up about 5 hours spent on this today but I took my time especially looking at how to prevent having to do it again!