Ok I'm an idiot but I have never worked on a newer 4x4 before. All of my experience is with Jeeps and everything bolts and unbolts in a reasonable way. I have to replace the ujoints in my 1999 Suburban. I get the front driveshaft off and there are no clips holding the ujoint caps in. I noticed some plastic pins though. How do I get the old ujoints out? I tried a 5 lbs sledge and a piece of pipe but the caps wouldn't budge. I tried heating the knuckle and it appeared to melt the plastic pins but they still wouldn't budge. Tell me I don't have to resort to taking this to the dealer?!?!?

Heat the yoke until all of the plastic is out and then use a press or you can use a ball joint press with no adaptors and press the joint out. If you use the press you dont have to melt the plastic you just press it out. This is the easy way and this is how most dealers do it. Doing it htis way take about five minutes.

Don't beat on it too much or you'll bend the ears.

If these are the same as my truck ('90 Burb), sounds like they are... The U joints have molded in place, 360* plastic clips imbedded in the yoke going around the ujoint caps. They are more difficult to disassemble than regular u-joints. I put them in a press, load the ujoint cap, fairly hard, but not so hard you bend the ears, then heat the ears with an oxyacetelene (not too hot!) until the the plastic clip gives, which it does all at once, with a bang. It seems you need to use a lot of force, combined with heat to get those ujoints out of the yokes. Measure your ears and make sure theyre straight (a dial caliper is useful here), I usually touch them up a tiny bit with a big, flat file, clean them, then install your new ujoints normally.

Good Luck

Once I get the old ones out and the new ones in, how do I retain them in the ears since there are no clips? Surely they just don't rely on friction to keep them in place. Why can't they just use clips!?!?!?

your new u-joints will have retaining clips.

The new u-joint will come with clips that go on the caps on the inside of the ear by the joint itself.

Those joints are 1350's right? I'll have to try those out on this custom driveshaft I made. I don't wanna hijack, so I'll shut up.

The u-joint size seems to be in between a 1310 and a 1350. Spicer 3V something?

The u-joint you have should be a saganaw 3r (spicer part # 5-3147x). Be sure to clean up the ears with a file or small grinding stone before installing.