half shaft question

Mark where they line up & which yoke goes with which shaft when you remove. There are arrows that line up for the halfshaft reassembly if you disassemble the halfshafts for some reason, but some yokes also have weights for balancing, so take notes if you want it back the way it was. You can also reverse each halfshaft for more exhaust clearance if you want, if not already done on your car. As for the u-joint replacement, most probably press in the new joints with sockets & vise, but you will need something like that to get them to compress fully to get the circlips in. FYI, Precision Proformance has replacements with a button that allows you to monitor when the grease level is getting low (similar to an axle buddy on trailers). I had some fitment issues on some I bought from them (the circlips were too thick without milling down the edges of the end caps a tad), but they had solved that on the last one I got. Some other vendors may, too. This job is really not a big deal at all.

Thanks for all of the very helpful info.
One further question, several years ago I disassemled the halfshafts to clean the old nasty grease out and put fresh grease in. I know that there is no chance I mixed them up, but I don't remember specifically making sure that they went back with the same orientation they came out with. Is there any way to verify this once I have them out of the car? You mention arrows showing where to line them up are they on all original halfshafts? thanks

Gary

Unfortunately, it IS important. If the crosses in the u-joints are not matched to each other, severe vibrations will occur. This is called a 'phasing error' and is serious. Basically, the two crosses in both u-joints must be aligned to each other in a given half-shaft. The further away from perfect, the worse the vibration will be. Depending on which halfshafts you have, there may or may not be indicators. Old joints will need to be pressed out and new ones pressed in with care.