Front Axle Shafts

[bill monahan]

Are there two types of front axle shafts ? My manual shows that the large ball type joint between the inner axle and outer shaft contains drive balls and a thrust ball and is assembled together. Mine doesn't look like that at all. I just have two ball halfs that mesh together. Am I missing something ???

[RMS]

there were three types of axle shafts available: rzepa, bendix and tracta. the wc 1/2 ton series trucks came with the rzeppa and bendix. 3/4ton and 1 1/2ton wc used the bendix and the 37 came with the tracta. m601 pw came with tracta uj's however the service manual shows the bendix type till the manual was updated in 61.

there is no direct interchange for the m37 so we are stuck with the tracta joint.

[bill monahan]

Thanks for the info. For a moment I thought I lost my balls.