Jeeps Canada - Jeep Forums - A Jeep lesson learned. Do your own work

So here's a bit of a funny tale for you all and I also need a bit of advice on what I might be looking at.

Me and a buddy were out on a fishing trip today. Thanks to the storm there were tree's down across the trail all over the place and I had to pull a few out of the way. I was hauling one back when I noticed my Jeep wouldn't stay in 4-low. 4 high was fine but unless I held up on my lever, 4 low just wasn't coming out. So once we got the tree out of the way we carried on to our spot, had a fish and began to make our way to another spot. I started hearing a faint bump. At first my buddy couldn't hear it, but when he did, he figured it was something rolling around in the trunk. Then when we were able to speed up where the trail widened up it got louder and faster. To me it sounded as if a branch had wrapped its way around my driveshaft and was hitting the floor. So we pull over at a warming hut to have a look and find nothing. Puzzled, we kept on looking around and that's when my friend tells me to look up at the front driveshaft.

That's when I near crapped my pants.

3 weeks earlier I had to replace the rear CV joint on the front driveshaft. I took the shaft out myself and removed the old one, but to get the new one on I needed a pair of boot clamp pliers which I didn't have and needed the job done before the weekend. So I did something I normally wouldn't have done and had a mechanic do it. Figured What The Hell, since I needed my new tires put on rims anyways.

So here I am, laying under my Jeep looking at the thing 3 weeks later in the middle of the woods on a fishing trip with my buddy, realizing that the mechanic put the damned thing in backwards. Yep. UV joint where a CV joint should be and VC joint where a UV joint should be. Just Great.

So we sign the guest log at the warming hut, hop back in the Jeep and head for home. But then, the faint tap soon turned into an atrociously loud THUD, CLANK, BANG.

So we pull over, dig out my ratchet set from the back and crawl under her again, with the intention of taking out the driveshaft. I get up there and then realize, not only did he put the thing in backwards, but he didn't use my original bolts and isntead replaced them with these circular looking things I've never even seen before and don't have a sweet clue what would fit them. Almost looks like an Allen Key of some sort would.

So there's no way I can make it the 20 km home, she's about to spit the shaft right out and listening to it is worse than hearing children crying, so we end up waiting 45 minutes for a two truck to come pluck us up off the road and drop it right off at the mechanics shop which was closed (still had the tow truck driver bill the shops account though).

What I'm really worried about but not mechanically inclined enough to know is what all could having the driveshaft in backwards could have messed up? Can someone tell me if there is any chance that my gears or T-case are messed up? I was worried about that since I lost 4 low. Also is there any chance that the U-joint and CV joint aren't a complete loss? I figure the U joint is done by the sounds of it as she was Knock-Knock-Knockin on heavens door the whole way out of the woods.

So let that be a lesson learned. It's better to take a sick day from your job and do your own work than have someone else do it when you're in a pinch.

-Libertad