Bad shake caused by bad U-joints

[Erebus]

The other day I was coming home on the highway from out of town when the Deli sounded different, kinda like the muffler was leaking. Then when I came off the highway I got a bad vibration at about 30 km/h, especially on acceleration.

Thursday morning, Kirkham Automotive (my favourite garage) did a test drive and put it up on the hoist, and they figured it was U-joints, but they can't do anything until Monday. I'm tasked with finding part numbers. So I came home and jumped on the forum. My problem did indeed sound a lot like what Coaxial reported in 2009 http://www.delica.ca/forum/suddenly-i-v ... -4932.html.

From other posts I find the part numbers:
Front: 2 of Precision 398
Rear: 2 of Precision 399

But Jesse said,

if you can get koyo's or spicer's for an 88 montero, then you'll be laughing. they are beefy !

So I went to my local National 4WD to see if I could find Spicers. They recommended another local shop, who said that they didn't have Spicer, but did have Neapco, which they say makes some Spicer products, is just as good, and they could do the work Friday morning, including driveshaft balancing. So I went for it to the tune of $366.81. (Yes, I know, U-joints aren't that hard to replace one's self, but it is raining here, so I'll pay someone else to do it.)

Now for the interesting part, prices:
At PartSource, the Precision 398 is $26.49 and the 399 is $28.49. The Neapco prices are quite different, about $18 for one part # and $50 for the other. I'll have to ask again which price is which. I'll edit this post when I get that info.

The Neapco part numbers:
Edit:
Front: 1-1516 $48 each
Rear: 1-1557 $18.75 each
[/end edit]

The shop that did the work is Danco Equipment. Well, actually, on Wednesday they changed their name to Commercial Truck Equipment. They have locations in Delta, Surrey, Calgary, Edmonton, Regina, Winnipeg, and Woodstock.

I haven't done extensive test driving, but the shake is gone. I'm quite amazed how quickly the symptoms got bad. From entirely normal to bad shake in 100 km.

Terms for searching: U-joint, universal joint, driveshaft, vibration, shake, Spicer, Neapco.

[jwfchase]

Thanks!

[Erebus]

Did over 200 km on the weekend, and the shake is cured. Today the Delica went to Kirkham for oil change and A/C work. The mechanic said that $366 for 4 u-joints and balancing was a good price, probably better than they could do.