s15 w/Jeep Cherokee Steering Shaft
 

Today i got a steering shaft out of a 94 Jeep Cherokee and installed it on me 89 Jimmy. It is almost a direct fit. The only thing I really had to do is replace the Jeeps cinch bolt with a smaller dia. through bolt and nut due to the jeep cinch bolts hitting the radius of the DD tube and at the power steering unit. This eliminates the rag and tullip joint of the OEM shaft. I got the Jeep Cherokee shaft for $7.00 at U-Pull it junkyard. Attached are photos of the install. It was either this or Flaming River U-Joints. I decided to give this a try first. I used Nylock nuts with locktight on the threads to ensure everything stays tight.

Update: I took the upper half back off and used my dremel tool and a small grinding wheel to mill a small relief for the upper Jeep bolt. I re-assembled the upper shaft and with the jeep bolt installed and loose the shaft can not slide out. I tightned it all back up with locktite. If the upper bolt ever loosens the shaft can not fall out due to the relief I milled.
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Update 9/5/10: Today I wanted to figure out why the lower jeep bolt was causing the shaft to slide off the gear box. It turns out that the threads in the middle of the bolt were rubbing against the splines of the gear box causing the shaft to slide off the gear box. I milled the threads off of the middle of the bolt and threaded it back in with locktite and tigtned it all up. Now the switch is complete. No more worries and all attached with OEM hardware. Is my S-15 Jimmy trail rated now that it is one part Jeep?

Cool. I picked up a couple of those a few weeks ago. I got as far as melting/collapsing them. The column end good and tight? I was thinking of adding a set screw when I do mine just in case.

I did not use any heat at all. I used my cut off tool and cut about 2mm off the end the outer tube and was able to use my vice and tap the two halves apart.

Say, this looks like a good idea. Is this a common mod? Does the stock joint fail or just get good and loose over time?

The upper joint (Tullip) the rubber was torn and the grease was leaking out and I replaced the shaft once before with an OEM New one that costs over $200.00. The other benefit is that it eliminates the lower rag joint for less slop in the steering. I was looking for another option besides replacing it with an OEM shaft. The two options I found was the Jeep Cherokee shaft or using U-Joints from Flamming River. The Jeep shafts has universal joints just like the ones that driveshafts use. The joints should last the life of the vehical. For 1st Generation use a shaft from 90-94 Cherokee and for 2nd Gens use a shaft from the same years but Grand Cherokee. The links below is where I got the idea and information from.

http://www.v8s10.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=24234

http://www.s10forum.com/forum/f178/f...t-cure-196484/

I for one thank you for this due to the wife's cavier deciding it needed a new tranny my flaming river fund fell apart so hit the local boneyard today and grabbed one of these to get my precious back on the road ($15 if I pulled it, $20 if they did) considering their only cherokee was sitting in a foot of water i happily paid the extra $5 lol.

Great thread! :D
If I want to do the same as you, will I need to trim off some of the inner part of the Cherokee's shaft knowing that I have no body lift installed? Was it easy to slide the inner part inside the external part (Cherokee shaft) to install it? One more thing, will it be long enough if I want to add a body lift later?
It has been around a year since you did yours. Did you have any problems out of it?

I have no body lift and I believe that there is room to epand for a body lift. So far I have been very happy with this mod. No issues at all. No slop at all and if there is any vibration from eliminating the rag joint I cannot tell. It is an OEM shaft just for a different make & model. The hardest part is seperating the two halves. Once I got the two halves abart and cleaned and lubed them they slid in/out of each other very easy. There is a plastic retaining ring at the end of the outer tube. I removed just enough of the end with a cut off tool to remove the plastic retainer. I then used my vice as a stop and I slid the inner tube between the vice and repeatedly slid the tube between the vice to act as a hammer until the two halves sperated. I would much rather have the U-Joints at each of the steering shaft vice the tulip and rag joints. First time it cost me over $200 to replace the intermediated shaft with a new one from GM. I do not believe I will ever have to replace the Jeep joints.

Do you think that it's too difficult (almost impossible) to pull the 2 parts apart without cutting to remove that plastic retainer off the top? Then I would remove that plastic retainer from the external half before sliding the smaller half?

You could try and pop the plastic off with a screwdriver and then split the two halves. I only did this one time so other ways may work just fine. All you can do is try and if it does not work you can always do it the way I did it.