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P15 drive shaft U Joint rubber boots from Roberts Motor Parts


3046moparcoupe

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Wanted to share my recent experience with Roberts Motor Parts concerning replacing the U-Joint rubber boots on my 46 Plymouth P15 Club Coupe, with all the forum members out there, I hope it helps.

 

If you look up replacement rubber boots in Roberts Catalog,...you find the following :

 

pp # T65      @ $24.50,      desc: rubber boots pr and clamps,      yrs 35-65.    and

pp # P319    @ $24.50,      desc: Universal Joint Boot (big),         yrs  55-65 (some).

 

So, I ordered the T65 for my 1946 P15.

 

Once received, these rubber boots looked like the correct part but they were about 25% too small overall,.in comparison to the boots on my driveshaft, absolutely no way these would work as they would have to be stretched a good 5/8 inch just to reach the clamping surface on both sides of the boot.. 

 

After speaking with Roberts, they assured me that the T65 was the correct boot for this car, and cautioned me as to who knows what anyone could have done to modify this driveshaft over the years,.....They had a good point, as I have only owned the car for the past 1 1/2 yrs - so it could easily have been a fact,....What did not make sense  however, is that to my knowledge, there were 2 original Detroit style ball & trunion joint mopar propeller shaft sizes,..the 3 5/8" small, (used in all cars with standard transmissions), and the larger  4" (used in some cars with automatics and all trucks)

 

I have the 3 5/8" drive shaft, with the 3 5/8" flange covers with the dpcd logo....and no evidence of any kind of tube replacement, etc...

 

At this point, after a couple tel conversations,...Gary Jr. at Roberts was good enough to get one of the larger boots, pp#319, and we compared some measurements of the boot over the phone,...

 

I asked him to go ahead and send the larger P319 boots, and they did........ Y A H O O !!!   A perfect match....

 

(it did take Roberts 3 different mailings to get me a large and a small clamp for each boot,.....but we finally got there,...)...

 

and to top it off,.........today, I was able to push the boots past the pins, up through the flange and into place on the driveshaft - without tearing or ripping them...

###note### I did change the formula up a bit for pushing the rubber boots through the flange. Rather than use grease, I coated the rubber boot inside and out, with Meguiars Rubber treatment,...as I had the driveshaft and the flanges all painted, and it seemed a good choice to condition the rubber of the boot while sliding it on with the Meguiars rather than grease. Then a little regular 90% Isoprophyl Alcohol on a rag cleaned up the Meguiars easily and quickly off the inside and painted exterior of the flanges....and a paper towl blotted away any left over Meguiars from the inside and exterior of the boots themselves. Meguiars is not like Armor All protectant,...I was introduced to it by the Sea Ray Marine company, as they use it on all the vinyl and rubber on their boats.....so hopefully this will preserve the lifer of these boots, ( this stuff is super slick when you apply it, and after I took my time cautiously pushing the 1st boot through the flange, the second only only took me about 2 minutes).

 

I just wanted to share this info with my forum members. It helped me immensely when I was starting the process of freshening up this drive shaft, to be able to read all the great posts that exist here on the forum regarding this topic.....and I read where some folks had bad experiences with the boots (Now, time will tell on these as to how well they will hold up),...but from some of the things I read, if you received the T65 boots they spec out for the P15 cars, I could see how many have written that the boots "DON'T WORK",...and I'm suspicious if you might have received the smaller boots also by mistake.

 

A special thank you goes out to forum member Larry Bauer who was good enough to share his experiences with me regarding this same subject.

 

also, I can't explain it - but don't let em snow ya,...upon getting the second boots, I got 4ea clamps all the same size,...when you speak to Roberts about it, they will tell y a,.."we've been sending them out with those same clamps for years and your the first to ever say it's not correct",..which sorry guys, but makes no sense, the boot is a good 1 inch larger on the big end than on the small end, so no way clamps the same size could work on both ends....if what they say is true, I guess folks were re-using their old clamps,...they would have to....

 

Definitely not trying to bash Roberts Motor Parts on this post, as I am extremely thankful for the products they (and the others Bernbaum, Steele, etc..) provide for us, so we can have a chance at getting our projects up to snuff and eventually completed, so I'll live with the extra shipping costs, both ways, and the peculiarities that present themselves along the way...

 

and to wrap it up,....I did also grab me a set of the original leather type u joint covers, just to have in case the boots don't hold up.  Again, thank you members on the forum for sharing, everything I read about the leather covers was good, and obviously the ability to just un lace them whenever to check the joints and re-grease is a plus.....

 

Thank you P15 Forum, and I hope this possible be of help to someone out there.

 

Regards.

 

Steve

 

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What a PITA, glad it got sorted out. You know all 1946-48 PDDC in Canada, use a common cross and roller u-joints front and rear, and can be bought cheap at any auto parts outlet. They are the same as a more modern GM ujoint, not sure why Canada got the simpler easier type over USA built cars, of the same period.

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What a PITA, glad it got sorted out. You know all 1946-48 PDDC in Canada, use a common cross and roller u-joints front and rear, and can be bought cheap at any auto parts outlet. They are the same as a more modern GM ujoint, not sure why Canada got the simpler easier type over USA built cars, of the same period.

I have a buddy looking for one of those u-joints for his American P15. I guess some of them came with them too? Do you have any idea what the GM part number is for those u-joints?

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