ujoint smoothness Q

With the shaft on the bench, the cross-pins should almost flop around and your installer should know that.
I have installed hundreds of U-joints in my 68 years.
When tightness occurs, and it does, something is wrong.
Normally the cups are just pressed in too far and the deals needs to be relaxed, by just whacking them back out.
But occasionally it happens that one or more needle rollers fell out of place, and dropped into the cups. This usually makes it very very difficult to press the cups in far enough to install the retainer clips. This should raise a red-flag to the installer, that SOMETHING IS WRONG. But you know; it's hard to get good help these days.............
So then, if you cannot free them up by driving the cups away from the cross intersection, then I would take it apart and look for out of place needles or even, debris.
If nothing is found you will have to check the cup receiving-lugs to make sure they are still parallel; perhaps somebody got over-zealous with the press.