AEV Drive shaft..

[bluejk09]

Any updates?

[aristobrat]

I bought on a few months ago.

They way it worked then was that they will ship you a new front DS that doesn't have the rzeppa joint on it needed to connect to your transfer case.

You then have to either find a local shop that will move the the rzeppa joint from your stock DS over to the new one, or you can move the joint yourself.

[kneeman]

How much? Photo of differences?

[aristobrat]

How much? Photo of differences?

$499 + $35 shipping for me.

Here's what it looks like in the box:



Here's what it looked like after I moved the rzeppa over from my stock DS.



And if you haven't seen the stock one that it replaces before, here you go.

[MoparNorm]

Should you have those potato's so close to the driveline?
You might get the driveline dirty...

[FUJIMO]

Yeah. I'm guessing you're not married.

[Kelsey73]

Yeah. I'm guessing you're not married.

LOL I learned that lesson when I moved my dirtbike into the living room for an engine rebuild, and again when I put the doors on the couch.

[aristobrat]

Yeah. I'm guessing you're not married.

Correct.

[thedude73]

I contacted AEV about the driveshaft problem and I have to tell you AEV is very helpful with all of this.

As I understand it the AEV driveshaft does use the factory Rzeppa joint and with a reduced diameter shaft at the other to clear the auto trans issue. My 2dr has an auto trans, AEV 3.5" with the control arm brackets installed. I believe this reduces a little of that front driveshaft angle to save that Rzeppa boot from damage.
Before making the purchase for the modified driveshaft I wanted to check that Rzeppa boot. I took out the driveshaft but did not see any tears in that boot. The only place that I thought it may be coming from is the area underneath the clamp on that boot. Actually coming underneath the rubber boot passing by that cinched boot clamp.
I took the driveshaft to a driveshaft shop locally and asked to have that clamp checked. The shop said the clamp was on tight and did not need to be replaced with another clamp. I cleaned up all the grease underneath the Jeep and cleaned the driveshaft of any grease. Reinstalled and checked again about 400 miles later ( no offroading during this time). The grease is starting to come out again. There is still no tear in the boot. I included picture and you can see where the grease is getting by.



With a new AEV driveshaft would the Rzeppa boot be prone to failure when articulating anyway?

Rear driveshaft is still OK at this time.

VOODOOJK said in an earlier post "Wont the angles on the rzeppa at the transfer case be identical to the OEM shaft? Im not sure of the actual construction of the new shaft so thats why i am asking".

I'm curious about this too.


Pic of the front Rzeppa joint.

Old post here, but I can answer this after having the $399 in my 2011 doing the same thing as your photo, albeit 6 years later.

Boot is in good shape, but just as you show in your photo, I have grease leaking from the top of the boot - above the clamp. Gave me driveline vibrations at 60 mph. Just put in a stock DS and all is gone, and truth be told, the angle on the boot is identical to the skinny AEV upgrade, and I'm not having any rubbing on the transmission, which was the reason they went with the thinner shaft to begin with.

Going to read more of this thread, but I wanted to chime in that the leaky problem you had with the stock front DS didn't get resolved with the $399 "upgrade" from AEV.

UPDATE: I will be going back to the AEV shaft after sending it in to AEV for clean up and boot replacement. Figure they can make sure it's good to go, then I'll toss it back in as I don't want to run into any issues down the road (there was a reason they did these for those model year Jeeps...I should stick with it to avoid problems).

[aristobrat]

(there was a reason they did these for those model year Jeeps...I should stick with it to avoid problems).

IIRC, the reason was that the stock driveshaft (for those model years) would make contact with the automatic transmission when flexing.

AEV's is slimmer, and doesn't make contact.

If you run into problems with this boot again, you might consider Tereaflex's rzeppa joint. The housing allows for a higher angle, which means the boot isn't as likely to get pinched when flexing.

[thedude73]

IIRC, the reason was that the stock driveshaft (for those model years) would make contact with the automatic transmission when flexing.

AEV's is slimmer, and doesn't make contact.

If you run into problems with this boot again, you might consider Tereaflex's rzeppa joint. The housing allows for a higher angle, which means the boot isn't as likely to get pinched when flexing.

I'm going to have to do this. I reinstalled the AEV shaft to prevent the possibility of the stock from bumping the transmission pan (although there was a ton of space there - articulation would need to shift far to the passenger (right) somehow to contact the transmission), but before that I swapped the Rzeppa joint. Vibration is still there, albeit probably 50% less than before, so there may be some issue with runout of the AEV shaft, or perhaps it's imbalanced somehow?

[aristobrat]

I reinstalled the AEV shaft to prevent the possibility of the stock from bumping the transmission pan (although there was a ton of space there - articulation would need to shift far to the passenger (right) somehow to contact the transmission)

On mine, a stock shaft will articulate close enough to the automatic transmission that the metal band that holds the expansion boot on will touch the transmission, causing the boot to rip. I've never seen the shaft itself damaged from flexing over and contacting it, though.

[thedude73]

Just left a local shaft shop here in Denver area. They had nothing good to say about the AEV shaft, and of course tried to sell me a 1310 Double Cardan for $475, claiming the Rzeppa is inferior to the DC in JKUs. They didn't seem to care much about the geometry correction brackets, and wanted to charge me $52 to check my AEV shaft for vibration.

So what's the story years after this shaft has been in other vehicles? Rzeppa or double cardan? Should I have my AEV shaft repaired, or get rid of it and buy the custom 1310?

[aristobrat]

I went for a custom-built 1350 after my AEV shaft croaked.

The only way I could get it not to vibrate at 60+ MPH was to buy adjustable upper front arms and increase the pinion angle. By the time I got the vibration out, there was so little caster left that my JKUR was darty/flighty at 60+ MPH.

... so I bought a stock front shaft someone was selling for cheap and put the Teraflex rzeppa joint on it and have been running that since. Boot in the middle is ripped, but other than that, it's 100x better than the 1350... at least on my 4.5" lift. If you're 3.5" you might have better luck.

[cwford]

I just put an Adams 1310 front DS on my 3.5in dual sport lift. No other adjustments. For the most part I can't tell the difference. I noticed a very slight vibration once but haven't felt it again.