Dana 35 Yoke upgrade
The modern Dana 35 holds the drive shaft with straps and bolts. The older Jeeps used U bolts to hold the drive shaft in place. The only difference in the yokes is that the newer one is tapped for threads to hold the bolts instead of being drilled for the larger U bolts.
This week I was reinstalling the straps on my rear drive shaft and stripped the threads on one of the bolts. Rather than try to repair the threads, I elected to retrofit the older U bolts to my yoke.
I used the U joint kit from Crown Automotive (A490K). This kit comes with two U bolts and four nuts and lock washers. They appeared to be over bent just a bit and I had to spread the legs to get them parallel. Otherwise the quality was fine.
I began by drilling 5/16 holes where the bolt holes were. These holes were a bit too tight for the U bolts so I used an 11/32 drill instead. The bolts fit fine in these holes. The casting of the yoke was easy to drill. I used water form a spray bottle to keep the bit cool.
I reinstalled the drive shaft and tightened the U bolts for a nice snug fit. The whole job took about 30 minutes.
If you don’t want to drill your yoke or if it is broken, you can get the whole kit including the yoke, a new seal and U bolts from Crown – part number D35-YOKE-UBK.
I will be modifying the front later using kit D3044-Yoke-UBK because there is not enough room for the nuts on the back of the stock yoke.
My bolts on my straps broke off in my yoke so im gonna replace it because i can’t the broken bolts out. Could you explain how to replace the yoke??
Check the bearing preload using an inch pound torque wrench. Then, remove the pinion nut. Install the new pinion. Tighten the nut to get just a couple more inch pounds of preload than before.
The procedure is in this article: http://mikestrawbridge.com/blog/2011/03/dana-35-pinion-bearing-replacement/
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