Hello All,

I hear all this talk of lubing the slip yoke to help the rear end clunk. I have two basic questions. Forgive my ignorance.

1. What/Where is the slip yoke?

2. How do I lube it?

Thank you.

Greg

Slip yoke is the portion of the driveshaft that enters the back of the transmission. Simply remove it, put some grease in it and slide it back on.

Gm has a "special lube" that is teflon based that should be used. We have found that using a small flat file to clean the splines of the slip yolk before lubing seems to help. Gm also has a nickel plated slip yolk for the same concern.

Ok, when it gets a bit warmer I might crawl under there and check it out. Thanks for the replies.

This is an email i sent to a guy that gave me some help when I was having trouble with my slip yoke. I had some pictures to go with it but I can not find them. I hope this helps.

I had a chance to work on my wife’s truck this week end. I greased the drive shaft spline as you suggested. I made a little variation in the way of taking it apart however. I got to looking at the drive shaft, and decided that if I took the BACK half of the shaft loose, I would not have to take the center bearing down in order to get the spline apart. I unbolted the rear u-joint instead. I got to looking at the clamp holding the boot and found one little ear holding it together. I took a small screw driver and bent the ear up then slipped the screw driver under the edge of the clamp and it just popped right off. When I got the shaft out, the spline was not dry but it did not have much grease in it. I added a goodly amount of wheel bearing grease and slid it back together. I took the clamp and found that it had a “crimp” point on it. I placed one side of the clamp in a vice and got hold of the other side with a pair of Vice Grips and gave it a good pull. The crimp straightened out a little. I put the clamp back around the boot and held a screw driver on the ear while my son tapped it down with a small hammer. I then took a pair of “end” (wire) cutters and gently squeezed the crimp to tighten up the clamp. It did not go back quite as tight as it was originally but I think it will hold. I will check it from time to time.

I got to thinking about clamping a rotating boot like that. You said that you used a wire tie to put it back together. I was thinking of using a hose clamp but was afraid that the weight of the screw on one side would unbalance the drive shaft. Well then I thought about using several small hose clamps, like you would use on a fuel line or a small air hose. If you used several, 3 or 4, however many it took to go around the boot, and if you spaced the screws evenly around the boot, it would balance out and you should have no vibration. I have heard of using large hose clamps to balance drive shafts.

As you can tell, I more or less have a “factory looking” repair. This brings up another point. I have an extended no deductible factory warranty on this truck. I called the dealership where I have been having warranty work done and talked to them about this “repair”. They said that “lubrication” was not covered under the warranty. They also said that if I went in there and messed with the drive shaft splines, I would void my warranty for that part. That is why I am glad I was able to put it all back together like it was. If something happens and a mechanic has to go into that boot, he is going to have to look very carefully to find that “someone” has been messing with it.