How to Replace Forward Driveshaft 2007-14 Toyota FJ Cruiser

Hey friends, it's Len here at 1A Auto. Today, I'm working on a 2007 Toyota FJ Cruiser. I'm going to show you how to remove the forward driveshaft. If you need any parts, you can always check us out at 1AAuto.com. Thanks.

Okay, so these bolts right here, they go through the driveshaft yoke, through the yoke on the differential, and then on the backside, there's a 14 millimeter nut. I'm going to hold that with my wrench, and then I'm going to zip this side out with a 14 millimeter socket. You can use whatever you've got, I'm going to use a swivel socket and an airgun. If you don't have access to that, use a 14 whatever you've got. Going to do the same for all of those.

Just want to show you, you want to make sure that you mark where your two pieces came apart from each other, so you can remember and put them back exactly where you got them from, so I'm going to use a little crayon. You can use whatever you've got. Nail polish, paint, I don't know, lipstick, whatever you got your hands on. Mark it, and then continue on. Here we are. Put that on there. Put it aside somewhere.

All right, so this is pretty much ready to break free. All I'm going to do is I'm going to take the driveshaft, give it a little squish, slide it over. That's my plan. Squish, slide it over. Cool, now we can come over here, we're going to remove this bolt, this bolt, that's going to take down this shield. It'll give us access to right under here where there's a 14 and a 17. Let's get these out of here real quick and we'll move along. Here we go, 12 millimeter, 12 millimeter. You can use your ratchet, you can use your airgun, use whatever you want. Let's see if we can get it break free here. A little bit of vibration helps. Leave that one in a little bit. Give this a bonk. We're going to fully remove this one. Show you what it looks like. There it is. Bolt number two, same as the first. Remove our little shield. Nothing too special about it. I mean it's very special in it's own way.

Seventeen on the backside there, 14. Going to see if we can break it free. Let's see, pretty tight. Let's use some penetrant on them. We'll let it sit for a second. Going to get the shaft spinning here, okay. We'll let that sit for a second. Something that's also important to remember, is you want to mark your driveshaft where it came off. If you could just put a little, I don't know, paint, lipstick, crayon, whatever you've got, just mark it so when you go to put it back on, you know exactly where it came off and you can put it back on. We'll let that sit for a second and then maybe we'll try an extension with a little airgun blast here, see if I can break them free, or maybe I'll try it with a wrench real quick as well.

Here we go, 17 on the backside, 14. Yeah, that's some penetrant for you right there. Nice. Let me grab my ratchet wrench. Too thick to fit in there of course. Doesn't feel like I have to hold the 17 side. Let's see, get this off of here. Behind that, a washer, keep those together. Each nut should get a washer. We'll keep this puppy rolling around in a circle here. Hopefully unjammed. Next. Last one here. I'm getting this nut over here. Last nut. Let's grab the washer off of there. Need a magnet for that, helps me at least. Got up there. Cool. We're just going to see if we can break it free. Let's see what I can do here. Not much space to get in there, but I think I can do it. Seems like it's starting to ... That side's breaking free.

Then what you got to do is come up here. We're going to put this part of the driveshaft up as high as we can get it so it's sitting on top of there, now this is going to come out of there. At least that's my plan. Okay, try to grab this shaft, try to get it around the tranny here just by turning the U-joint. Going to sneak it up. Now we've removed our front driveshaft.

When you have your driveshaft out, it's always important to check your U-joints. That's these right here. It makes it so this can do this. The way you do that is by trying to twist. Grab this one and go like that, okay? If you feel it go, then odds are the U-joint, which is this right here, is no good, okay? If you get a little bit of movement by squishing the caps, let's see if I can bring it down, going like this, you get a little bit of, just a teeny bit, that's really not too bad. If you have a lot and it seems like it's really loose and wobbling around, then it's no good. Also, if this is stiff, you feel it's nice and loose and then it goes tight, loose, tight, loose like that, you've got bad rollers inside your caps there, okay? You'd want to replace your U-joint.

These U-joints on the FJs, come on Len, there it is, got a little grease fitting for you. Every time you're doing an oil change or you just want to get under there, you can always put grease in these, super important. The rear area of the driveshaft right here has one. When you pump this full of grease, it fills up this area right here and makes it do this can slide. This one doesn't look like it's been done in a little while, so I'm going to make sure that I grease that up. I'll show you a video on that. Then of course, we've got the rearward U-joint right there. We'll give that a little twist. Feels nice and tight. Feels nice and tight. Go like this. I don't feel any binding. Right, it's not like tight, loose, tight, loose. This feels great. I'm going to go ahead and reinstall this into the vehicle and we'll move along.

Okay, time for the install. We've got our forward driveshaft, safety glasses, hand protection. I'm just going to slide it in as far as we can go up there. Let's see if I can get it. We need it to go far enough so we can get this up here, right? Let's see what we can do. Of course, it came out a little easier than it's going to go in. Typical, right? Just use a little bit of brute force. Not so much. Okay. Come on, baby. A little twist, just like anything else, when the stars align. Cool. Glasses are fogging up a little bit. If you wanted to use Threadlocker on these, you could. It's your prerogative. I would probably recommend it. For the purpose of this video, I'm not going to worry about it.

Next, I'm going to find my little crayon. I'm going to find it on my driveshaft that I removed. Okay, time for the install. We've got our forward driveshaft, safety glasses, hand protection. I'm just going to slide it in as far as we can go up there. Let's see if I can get it. We need it to go far enough so we can get this up here, right? Let's see what we can do. Of course, it came out a little easier than it's going to go in. Typical, right? Just use a little bit of brute force. Not so much. Okay. Come on, baby. A little twist, just like anything else, when the stars align. Cool. Glasses are fogging up a little bit. If you wanted to use Threadlocker on these, you could. It's your prerogative. I would probably recommend it. For the purpose of this video, I'm not going to worry about it.

Next, I'm going to find my little crayon. I'm going to find it on my driveshaft that I removed. Get this thing spinning. Yeah, well, ah, there it is. Kind of rubbed off a little bit but I'm not worried about it. Slide right on there. We've got our nut, our little washer. We're going to start all four of these on before we tighten any of them down, okay? Each nut gets a washer. If you end up with an extra washer at the end, well, you know what you're going to have to do.

I'm going to go ahead and tighten these up. Almost there. Tight. Let's get this puppy turning. Looks like we'll bring it around. We'll try to skip, okay? Do every other one. Basically, just go crisscross here, make a little X. Almost there. Okay, we tightened all four of those, we can go ahead and put the shield on if you want, or you can move ahead and just start the front on. Let's do the shield.

You can use a little never seize, you don't have to, it's your prerogative. Maybe you don't have any. Grab our two bolts, 12 millimeter heads, right? They're both the same. Grab our shield. Get that in there. Get both of these started before we tighten either of them. Both started, let's tighten them up, 12 millimeter. Feels pretty good. Okay, those are tight. Now you want to pay special attention, make sure when you were removing the bolts, if your bracket twisted and this is hitting up against your exhaust or even really close to it, just bend it away. It's fairly flexible. You can do what you want, okay? That looks good. I got plenty of space all the way around. I'm not anywhere near my driveshaft yoke. Looks good. Let's move ahead.

Okay, so we've got bolts and a nut, right, oh yeah, washer. We're going to line up our crayons. Okay, got our bolt, a nut, and of course a washer. We're going to go through the driveshaft and then through the yoke. We've got our yellow lines or whatever color you used, our markings we'll say, lined up. If you wanted to use some Threadlocker, it's up to you. For the purpose of this video, I'm not going to worry about it once again. Need to see if I can get it started back there. I can't see it so here we go. I'm going to start all my bolts before I tighten any of them down, but I am going to get it pretty close.

The reason for not tightening it down first is because if I need to shift it a little bit to line up the holes, I don't want to have that nice and tight and make it so I can't do what I need to do. I'm going to put that down there for now. Have another one. Here we go, we'll use our 14. Just going to try to see if I can grab onto that nut back there, use a 14 on the forward side or I guess the rearward side and tighten this right down. Once I get this tight, I'm going to do the same thing to the other three. Tight, very nice. Let's do the other three. Yep. Nice and tight. One, two, three, four. Okay. All four are nice and tight. Perfect.

Thanks for watching. Visit 1AAuto.com, your place for DIY auto repairs, for great parts, great service, and more content.