Broken drive shaft. HELP!

[justinfonder]

hey yall, i just bought my first jeep, an 81 CJ5 . on my way home from buying it, the drive shaft fell off, bolts for u joint straps snapped off. i've never seen a driveshaft like this before. I'm 250 miles from home and need to get this thing fixed first thing in the morning. After doing some looking about online i see there is supposed to be a "drive shaft oil seal" where the 2 pieces meet. now, after taking a tumble at 60 mph down the highway, mine does not have that and no auto parts store in my area carries one. the question is, can i drive without it? it looks like its just a fitting to grease the shaft. any and all help would be huge. thanks

 

[Sasquach]

What about leaving it off and driving in 4H? Can't say on the shaft but is it even still straight after coming off? if you are refering to a seal were the slip is in the shaft I would not be too concerned with that as much as is it still straight.

 

[justinfonder]

not sure on how true it is now. is that possibly the reason it snapped the u bolts off to begin with? thought about driving in 4H the whole way (250 miles). if i cant get the rear shaft fixed tomorrow that's what i will have to do. i attached a picture of the bearing i am talking about

 

[mylittlecj5]

I drove my old '72 F-250 loaded with about 2000 Lbs. of engines and tools nearly 1500 miles on the front driveshaft after the rear axle snapped a shaft...Drive it slow(er) than normal and you should be OK.
You may pick up a vibration off the front shaft if its not in real good shape, but you'll make it home (Hopefully! LOL)

 

[Cheepjeep85]

that shouldn't have any effect on the u joints as long as you are driving down the road if you put it back together you should be able to drive home on it as long as the splines are still there in that slip shaft it will pull. your likely problem to begin with was the bolts were over torqued and failed while you were running down the highway.

 

[justinfonder]

i got her home! i ended up taking the remains of my drive shaft to a truck/machine shop in town. the u joint end of the splined shaft had crowned over when it hit the highway and was toast. luckily, a guy that worked there was a jeep guy and had a brand new drive shaft for a CJ5 in the back but with a larger spline. so for 100 bucks he cut the spline off of his, and welded mine on, installed 2 new u-joints, i went home and bolted it up and 250 miles later i was home. the up side of this was you could tell where the shaft had been riding and it was almost too short, so when he machined it, he gave me an extra inch or so of shaft for the upcoming lift kit.

 

[dslywalker]

Cool Has the jeep got a lift kit on it.Could have been why the shaft was coming up short.