Drive Shaft Drama

On my pre-Thanksgiving trip to bring The Kid home for the holiday, I spent two days with Nevada Expeditions exploring ghost towns in Lincoln County.

Our final stop was the #1 ghost town I wanted to visit, Delamar.

Things were going well, but Honey Badger made strange sounds in 4-wheel drive. When I got the lift and new tires, it would rub on a hard turn, but I didn’t think much about it. Being totally deaf in my left ear, I didn’t think it sounded too bad.

Leavlign Delamar, we took the long way around the hill to visit the cemetery most people miss. The road was full of washouts, but we found a site outside of Delamar because of our detour. We figured it was meant to be! Our best guess was this was a concentrating plant.

We still had to go through more washouts, but thankfully we made it through. We hadn’t realized we weren’t in 4 low like we thought. We weren’t the only ones who had an issue; someone else turned around at the bad washout.

We had a pretty drive to Mesquite, past the Ash Springs preserve.

The sound got really bad once we turned off Highway 93, and the Jeep started shaking. Of course, by then it was pitch black. We stopped at the gas station in Glendale, but Austin didn’t see anything rubbing. Millennial that he is, by the time I went to the bathroom, he had already googled and figured out it was the driveshaft. We continued to Mesquite and Austin talked to our friend Steve while I got The Kid for dinner. Steve is a mechanic and agrees with the diagnosis. As the Jeep was shaking, Steve thought we should remove the driveshaft.

The next morning saw us at Walmart. I had the tools to remove the shaft, but we needed a longer lever. What can be more fun than playing mechanic in the Walmart parking lot? Doing it as a wind, rain, thunder and lightning storm hit.

I went with an Adams Driveshaft greasable 1310; everyone has had great luck with them. As a bonus, they are a Nevada company. They had it built and shipped in 1 day; it beat me home from Vegas.

Instead of a flimsy connection, I now have a double U joint. When we looked at the old shaft, this is where it broke.

Thank you, Steve, for walking me through installing the new drive shaft. It was a quick job, but I was numb from the cold by the time we finished. Of course, we had to check out our work and took a drive on Prison Hill.

The old driveshaft is where the installation video suggests, in the garbage!

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