Tom Wood's driveshaft boot ripped

[travisk]

This rubber boot on my new Tom Wood's drive shaft was not meant to be. It got ripped apart on a rock and then melted to my muffler. Can I just cut it off or do I need to get another one?

 

[Lurch]

I wouldn't be too concerned about the boot, I believe it's just an option to keep the splined shaft cleaner. My Tom Woods didn't even come with a boot. The dust cap with the grease zerk looks like it pulled off the rear slip yoke though, that can be a problem as you can't grease it properly anymore. You'll want to press that back on.

 

[souske]

you can order new ones from TW
unfortunately shipping is almost as much as the boot.
I ordered two after i lost one in moab

 

[blondejoncherokee]

I've never ran a DS boot in the last 13 years on a single Driveshaft. You can probably zip tie whats left on the thing and leave it as it. no big deal.

 

[Digger87xj]

if the yoke does not have an old school spline seal then the boot will need replaced.

 

[jeeperjohn]

I quit running a boot because I kept tearing them up and it was a pain. I have had no problems with them since.

 

[travisk]

There doesn't seem to be a dust cap or zerk. Is it ok to leave it like this?

 

[blondejoncherokee]

Duct tape and lots of grease.

 

[travisk]

Tom Wood's recommends replacing the boot. Without it they say the splines will wear out as the grease dries up.

But it sounds like you guys haven't had any problems.

It's $30 for two extra boots shipped with some zip ties instead of the metal clamps.

 

[Lurch]

What about just getting a shock boot from an O'Reillys or something similar.

 

[GrimmJeeper]

i have at least 4 or 5 of those shock boots Lurch is talking about laying around if you want a couple Travis. it looks in your pic like the grease cap is missing though. you can see it in this pic:

that will allow all kinds of shit to get in there and gum up the splines, this is going to give you problems later down the road.

 

[travisk]

Sure, I'll try one.

 

[Lurch]

i have at least 4 or 5 of those shock boots Lurch is talking about laying around if you want a couple Travis. it looks in your pic like the grease cap is missing though. you can see it in this pic:

that will allow all kinds of shit to get in there and gum up the splines, this is going to give you problems later down the road.

Damn Grimm! Your shaft is short!!

 

[travisk]

I found out that Tom Wood's shafts come with either the boot (XB) or the cap (XC).

With the XB configuration, we will use a heavy rubber boot which is banded down with stainless steel banding to seal all of the contaminates out and keep the grease in. The XC configuration uses the same slip yoke & spline stub but instead of using the rubber boot, we drill and tap the slip yoke for a grease fitting and use a dust cap which has convolutions that follow the spline stub for sealing. We consider the XB configuration to be the longest lasting and best value.