U Joints or Univeral Joint replacement methods.

[theKbStockpiler]

I think this is a worthy topic that does not get enough attention.
Most mechanics have probably replaced them and have had issues doing it. I replaced Ujoints that all I used was a hammer ,drift and receiving socket and everything went fine and only took 20 minutes to replace. I have also had ones that took half a day to replace and I had to come up with ways to just get the job finished with a result that would most likely be 'okay'.
I have an XJ jeep and it has wheel joints in the front axle. They are horrible to replace. The first time I replaced them the yokes were slightly closed so I used a Two Arm Puller to force the cap down. It worked but the joint was slightly stiff. Worked well for about 5 years. They were the Duralast brand and were too long as is they were so tight from end to end that you could not grease them. The grease would hit the cap and not make it to the bearings.Even the caps I did not force down with a puller were not grease-able.. Dana Spicer parts are generally a quality replacement part but they do not make a grease-able version but I used them hoping that they would be the best choice.
I learned last time that if the cap is mushroomed or the bore has been mauled over to cut the joint out with a grinder and force the cap in. Then maybe use a file on the bore to repair it. After using the hub rebuilding technique of hitting the driving screw while the puller has compression on the cap bore juncture to basically align the cap with the bore to get it to move, I thought that a big issues is not having the yoke bores aligned. So cutting out the joint and forcing the caps out individually with a puller was the way to go. One cap moving does not effect the other this way
This time somehow one of the yokes was narrowed by about 30 thousandths so I used a threaded rod to spread them out. I got it better but it was resisting so I figured I would force it in with a puller. During this I discovered that using a spacer on the cap and hitting it with a hammer on an angle so the it was mostly contacting the inside yoke part of the cap with the spacer worked better some times that the puller did. i had to test fit the caps and the yoke opening so the new caps had to come out a few times. Next time I will order an extra joint or two just in case. Another thing I did was to oval the cap bore if the cap went in to easily and might spin. Works with starter rings on flywheels.

To some degree I feel that these axle shafts should be rebuild at a factory because they are so time consuming to do. I would never volunteer to do any press in driveline or suspension jobs at work unless you are paid hourly. I had my rear drive shaft retubed and they left one of the snap rings out and did not replace all of the parts I wanted so jobbing it out is not always better.

Are there any techniques I am not aware of? Are there ways that could make this easier?