How to Replace Driveshaft Coupler 2003-07 Cadillac CTS

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In this video we're going to show you how to replace the rear driveshaft coupling on this 2006 Cadillac CTS, 2.8 liter V6. Here are the items you'll need for this repair.

We're going to use a lift to make this easier to show you guys at home, but you should be able to do this in the driveway with a jack and jack stands. Locate the O2 sensor connector on the transmission. This is going to be on the left side of the tranny for the driver side O2 sensor and the right side for the passenger. This process is the same for either. Remove the safety on the connector, lift up, and release the electrical connector for the O2 sensor. Using a 22mm wrench, remove the O2 sensor from the exhaust. Disconnect the O2 sensor on the passenger side and remove it the same way as the other.

Remove these four 14mm bolts from the exhaust with a 14mm socket and ratchet. Separate the exhaust and allow it to hang. Remove these two 13mm bolts securing this cross brace under the exhaust. As you remove the last bolt, be sure to support the exhaust so it doesn't just fall. Push this down. Now that we've got it loosened up we can just move it out of the way, allow our exhaust to hang down a litter farther.

We have three rubber exhaust hangers here, got the muffler, we're going to spray some penetrating oil around of them to make them slide out of the rubber easier and then simply pull them over the ends and bring the exhaust down. Support the exhaust as you drop it out of the last hanger. Remove it from the vehicle.

We'll have to remove our entire drive shaft assembly from the vehicle. Before removing any component of the drive shaft, you want to be sure to index all aspects so that the shaft goes back in exactly the way it came out in correlation to the other parts because these are a balanced assembly. The way we'll do this by marking the drive shaft and the flange in two places just to be safe. We'll repeat these at the front of the drive shaft and the splines if we plan to separate the shaft.

Remove the drive shaft coupling to differential flange bolts, there's two here and one at the top. We'll have to rotate the drive shaft in order to access the one at the top of the vehicle. Using an 18mm socket and ratchet as well as a wrench, go ahead and remove the bolts. Get in and put the vehicle in neutral, and then rotate the drive shaft until you can access the last bolt. Put the vehicle in park.

Once the rear's been disconnected you can go on to remove the bolts from the transmission flange to the drive shaft coupling using an 18mm socket and ratchet. Again, we put the transmission in neutral and rotated the drive shaft so we could access this last bolt here.

We're going to take a small pry bar, wedge it between our coupling and our transmission flange and just pry that shaft back on the splines, as much as we can. It's a little harder to do with ours because the center support's blown out so it's flexing. Now we've got it starting to separate, so when we're going to remove our center support, it should be easier to remove our drive shaft.

Remove the two bolts on the center support bushing using a 15mm socket and ratchet. Be careful as your drive shaft is now disconnected, so you're going to have to support it as you remove the last bolt.

We've supported our drive shaft right at the center bushing with a screw jack. If you're doing this at home, on the ground, you can do this with a jack stand or a jack. Once that's supported, I'm going to use a bigger pry bar to try to separate the front portion of our drive shaft from the transmission. Repeat this step to separate the rear drive shaft from the differential. Once you've separated the coupling, we're going to remove our support. Remove our drive shaft from the vehicle.

Here we have the driveshaft assembly from our 2006 Cadillac CTS. In place of a u-joint, this style driveshaft uses what's called a rubber coupler. This is a rubber joint that connects our transmission flange to the driveshaft and the driveshaft to the differential flange on the other end. The reason this is possible is because our vehicle has a fixed transmission and a fixed differential because of its rear independent suspension. These joints tend to tear and crack from dry rot and age as well as oil contamination and other road debris.

Now that we've got our driveshaft out we can change this joint with an 18-millimeter socket and ratchet and an 18-millimeter wrench. We'll unbolt the old coupling from the driveshaft. These have a thread locker on them so they do require a good bit of force to remove. Be sure that the bolts are installed in the same direction that they're removed from. You might have to give them a little tap to get them back through the joint. Repeat these steps on the remaining two bolts. These joints have a bevel similar to this one on the other side, so we use a small pry bar to pop those beveled ends out of the driveshaft.

Here we have our old part that we removed from our vehicle and our new part from 1AAuto.com. As you can see these parts are identical. We have the same size rubber joint, we have the same beveled edges to seat into our driveshaft, as well as our transmission or differential flange depending on which end you're putting this on. What happens to these old joints is this small surface cracking that you see in a couple of places is perfectly acceptable and normal for an old joint, but you can see there are some much deeper cracks and tears beginning to form throughout the joint. This is going to make the joint less rigid. It can cause vibrations, clunking sounds, and it loses a little bit of the power that the vehicle is trying to put down to the tires by twisting this up or knotting it, keeping it from delivering smooth power. So if your old joint is torn, dry rotted, or has deep cracking like ours does, this new part from 1A Auto is going to go in direct fit just like your original equipment and fix you up right.

Line up the beveled edges into the holes in the driveshaft flange. Remove the old thread locker from the hardware. A little bit of brake cleaner and a wire brush will get all that old stuff out of there. Then we will apply a new coat to the threads before we tighten down our hardware. You can start it into the driveshaft for now. Once all the hardware is in, we'll put some new thread locker on there and torque them down. We'll apply some high-strength thread locker to our threads. Start our nut, tighten it down with an 18-millimeter socket ratchet and wrench, and then we'll torque to 63 foot-pounds. Repeat these steps on the remaining two bolts.

Reinstall the rear section of the drive shaft first. Be sure that your bolt holes are aligned and that the flange is aligned before bolting it down. You will have to pull out on the front yoke of the drive shaft in order to get it to seat onto the pin at the front. Start the two bolts on your center support bearing. Only do these by hand as we may still have to adjust and line up the flange on the drive shaft and the differential.

Find our alignment mark that we made before we removed the drive shaft, line up these holes. We'll repeat this process in the back, rotating the differential to make our alignment, as not to risk dislodging the front.

Now we'll clean the thread-locker off of all the remaining hardware and reinstall. Remove all of the old thread-locker with some brake cleaner and a wire brush. This will ensure that our new thread-locker sets in properly and that our torque specs are correct because our threads are free of dirt and debris.

Start you hardware into the differential, be sure that the bolts face in, with the nuts on the differential side. Now we'll put our transmission in neutral, so apply a couple drops of thread-locker before we tighten down each bolt. Remember our transmission is in neutral now, so we can rotate these around and tighten them quickly before the thread-locker cures. Rotate around, tightening these with an 18mm socket, ratchet and wrench. Be sure you're watching that the beveled ends seat fully into the flange before torquing the nut. The torque spec is 63 foot-pounds. Repeat these steps on the remaining two bolts.

Reinstall the three bolts for the transmission flange, we're going to want to go with the bolts from the transmission, coming out through the coupling. Again we're going to apply a few drops of thread-locker, tighten them down with this 18mm socket, ratchet and wrench. Torque to 63 foot- pounds. Repeat these steps for the remaining two bolts.

Tighten up these two bolts with a 15mm socket and ratchet. You'll see a discoloration from where it used to line up. Make sure that you align it to those marks, so that we know that this center bearing is in straight and won't cause any binding or vibrations. Torque these bolts to 37 foot-pounds.

We'll hook these three points into the rubber mounts, up here under the car. Lift on the exhaust once the rear two hangers are in place. Slide the center bracket in and hook it in. Start the bolt by hand. Now it's supported and easier to install our last exhaust hanger.

Tighten up your two 13mm bolts on the center support. This is not a machine surface or a seal of any type, so you just have to get them tight. We just recently replaced our catalytic converters, so there's no need for us to replace our exhaust gaskets. If yours need to be changed, you can pry them off with a flat blade screwdriver or you may have to break them off with a chisel. Install the new one, then we'll line up our pipes, and reinstall our four 14mm bolts. Tighten up all your bolts, and make sure that they seat onto the exhaust gaskets evenly.

Torque these bolts to 16 foot-pounds. Reinstall the O2 sensors into the bungs. Use an oxygen sensor socket, torque the O2 sensors to 40 foot-pounds.

Thanks for tuning in. We hope this video helps you out. Brought to you by www.1AAuto.com, your source for quality replacement parts and the best service on the Internet. Please feel free to call us toll-free, 888-844-3393. We're the company that's here for you on the Internet and in person.

How to Replace Driveshaft Coupler 2003-07 Cadillac CTS

step 1 :Removing the Exhaust

step 2 :Removing the Driveshaft

step 3 :Removing the Driveshaft Coupling

step 4 :Installing the Driveshaft Coupling

step 5 :Installing the Driveshaft

step 6 :Installing the Exhaust

Tools needed

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Ford Cadillac Lincoln Rear Drive Shaft Driveshaft Coupler Dorman OE Solutions 935-103

Part Details:

How to Replace Pinion Seal 1998-2012 Ford Crown Victoria

How to Replace Driveshaft Coupler 2003-07 Cadillac CTS

step 1 :Removing the Exhaust 0:31

step 2 :Removing the Driveshaft 2:54

step 3 :Removing the Driveshaft Coupling 6:33

step 4 :Installing the Driveshaft Coupling 8:34

step 5 :Installing the Driveshaft 11:01

step 6 :Installing the Exhaust 14:41

Tools needed

Shop Products

Ford Cadillac Lincoln Rear Drive Shaft Driveshaft Coupler Dorman OE Solutions 935-103

Part Details:

How to Replace Pinion Seal 1998-2012 Ford Crown Victoria

step 1 :Removing the Exhaust

step 2 :Removing the Driveshaft

step 3 :Removing the Driveshaft Coupling

step 4 :Installing the Driveshaft Coupling

step 5 :Installing the Driveshaft

step 6 :Installing the Exhaust