Cobra ujoints

have an 89 Cobra (5.8)

have an 89 Cobra (5.8) that has a clunk that seems to be engine RPM related coming from the drive. Clunk is there in neutral - gets louder/stronger when in gear - seems to follow engine RPM (one clunk per revolution). Does not sound like clutch -sounds more like a bad u-joint. Do these go bad often and is there a way to check them without removing drive?

"Could be the u-joints, no way

"Could be the u-joints, no way to tell without removing the drive, does the noise get any worse when turning left or right? The reason I ask is generally noise from turning generally indicates u-joints and noise when triming up/down is gimbal bearing. Even visual inspection of the u-joints can be misleading they could look good and feel smooth to turn but until you tear them apart?"

"What is the procedure for rem

"What is the procedure for removing verticle drive? Appears to be only 6 bolts & slip it off. Anything I should be lookng out for??
Thanks, Chuck"

"In a nutshell, if you can hav

"In a nutshell, if you can have some kind of support under the skeg to support some of the weight it helps, leave the shifter in Neutral, rermove the 2 nuts holding the trim rams to the drive and slide the shaft out, remove the 6 nuts holding the drive on and slide out slowly/carefully, and extra hand to grab the drive shaft as it becomes unsupported helps so it doesn't just drop down."

Just an update - The Gimbal be

Just an update - The Gimbal bearing was bad - had about 1/8" worth of slop in it - Bellows had a couple holes in the top (from storing with the drive up I assume) -U-joints were a little rusty but tight and smooth - I replaced them anyway - old ones still looked OK on the inside -pin color and needles were good - probably could have left them in -but since I was there and had parts.

Pretty easy job - I used my special "u-joint" tool - a modified small pitman arm puller I created for my Jeep - I would say a 3hr job -

I used a ratchet strap to a beam in my steel shop to hold the drive up - then set it down on a carpeted dolly - You could pick it up by hand if you needed to - but it would be really hard to try and remove/install without some support -If I had to guess - I would say right around 100lbs -maybe a little more

symptoms were noise at idle ("grumbling") - on tilt change at speed (had one sweet spot that was good) and noise when turning hard over at speed - I call this noise "bearing speed wobble" you can hear and feel it even at full speed - but the bearing was really bad.

I did have a couple issues getting to the bearing:
The shift cable is a pain - manual says to "remove the retaining clip" and that's it - big help.... pulling the cable through is a bad idea on mine - too many tight turns. I ended up taking the cable off the housing.

Finding a 1/2 allen is not easy either

Years of use and negelect -motor mounts have settled quite a bit (probably why the bearing was so bad) and mounts were loose on the stringer so they had worn in a bit - so to get the drive back into alignment -I had to adjust them up pretty far (they were already up with only 3/8" of thread showing above the top nut)