Broke driveshaft

[conn72ford]

Took the truck to work yesterday and noticed a vibration, thought ah it'll make it there and back. Nope, i was wrong. Broke the drive shaft right at the u joint. After getting towed home i took it apart and turned out the u joint was dry and i had been meaning to grease it. Could have been prevented. Anyways my truck is a '72 f250 longed 4x4 and it is lifted 4". The question is do i need to get an aftermarket off road drive shaft or will an OEM one be ok. Any insight will help, thanks

[flyboy2610]

A driveshaft shop should be able to replace that yoke for you.

[tqwrench]

After you get that shaft repaired, and if you had vibration before, and since it's lifted 4" you might want to have a look at the driveline angles. You may need to shim the perches with a wedge type shim so the snout of the axle (think pig's head) tilts up a little. Probably going to want adjust at the transmission and/or shim the center stack (if a two-piece shaft). Best way to attack that is with an angle meter. If unsure how to or don't have the tools, any shop that does lift kits should be able to fix it. Bad driveline angles can cause hellacious vibration and premature joint failures. You want to have angles within 1' of each other on the same shaft. Example: the angle is 3.5 degrees at the axle and 1.5 at the transmission - bad juju. Got to bring those to within 1 degree difference.

[conn72ford]

Thanks for the reply's, ill have to call around on monday and find out about getting it repaired, the only thing is there is a small dent in the drive shaft from it flinging around, not real bad but think it would be an issue? And yes the angle did seem a little steep on it when i got the truck, may have led to it weakening prematurly

[tqwrench]

I'd think about getting a replacement shaft now if I were you. That thing isn't longing for the world. I'd bet $25 against a donut it's out of round now too. Try http://www.car-part.com for a used one in your area.

[conn72ford]

found a place right near me with the parts, also working on swapping the front end with a '67 grill, check out the post on the paint and body page. Was kinda bad timing for this to happen but hey thats what i get for pushing it, thanks for the link and the insight.

[motzingg]

ugh! that sucks.

thanks for the reminder as to why i quit driving tall trucks, haha!

if it wasn't u-joints, it was tires wearing funny, tie rods, shimmy, road noise, vibrations, steering gear... ugh. it takes a lot of work to be that cool!

[conn72ford]

haha don't forget the bearings, yes they are more work, sometimes i wish mine was stock. Finally got a chance to work on the Beast. Just picked up a replacement drive shaft today for 100.00 bucks, and put new ujoints in. I found that Orilley's has the wrong u joints for these trucks, they only had one part option and it did not fit. unless maybe the guy made a mistake. I ended up having to go to Smith Auto to get the right ones. I'm about to mount it but I'm not sure about torque specs. Do the u bolts require certain torque specs? i did not even think about it till i was about to mount it.

[conn72ford]

Got all the u joints put in and mounted it back on the truck, just got done test driving it and everything is nice and smooth.