As most of you know, our 61-63s have a rather complicated drive line setup. I recently had a clicking drive line noise and slight vibration develop that turned out to be a dry/ worn out ball&spring loaded socket that’s located in the center of the constant velocity u-joint. The shop manual calls this a “joint centering ball & socket” and its purpose is to maintain the relative positions of the two u-joints in the CV assembly. There was no way to do any preventive maintenance as far as lubricating this ball & socket , without completely disassembling the constant velocity u-joint, or so I thought.
A few months ago, while scrounging through the local wrecking yard (DVAP), I purchased a complete driveline assembly , you know it’s always good to have spare stuff…….I took apart the spare CV to see if it was any good and to lube it and then use it to replace the bad one my 63. To my surprise, when cleaning it up, I noticed that on my wrecking yard purchase there is a small drilled passage way to the ball and socket on the one yoke , see the enclosed picture, but my original CV joint on the car is not drilled for one. This hole looks like it serves two purposes, one, a way to get lube into the bal/socket and two, a relief for excess grease when assembling the unit. I had packed the socket full of grease and when putting it together, a bit of excess grease came out of the passage way, so I know there I got more then enough lube in it. A small oil seal is used on the ball/socket assembly, the GM part # is obsolete, I did find some NOS but the price was $24 at one vendor and $50 at another. Turns out that National Seal # 13X22X6 is an almost perfect replacement, only difference it’s about 1mm thicker, for about $5 at Advance Auto Parts. Just drive it in one mm shy of flush and it works fine.
Anyway, I hope somebody gets some use out of my new found information on these driveshafts, I know I always appreciate tips on these great little Oldsmobiles.
Also took a shot of the 61-63 F85s inventory at the DVAP, more than a dozen or so, at least two are Jetfires.
.