My rear drive shaft

[Bossanova]

so i climbed under the truck today to have a look at the driveshaft. it sounds like i'm grinding nails down there. the boot is totally torn to shreds and there's alot of movement in it. I measured 30 7/8 inches from end to end(is that a standard size?) i packed it with a ton of grease (temp fix for the moment) the front shaft one looks okay for now.

[clem]

It's too friggin' cold to venture out right now to measure, but your drive shaft looks like it HAS been grinding up nails. I 'll get a measurment for ya if nobody else knows off the top of their heads.

[Bossanova]

well i got another question if anyone knows. Is the front driveshaft and the rear the same meaning if there the same length are they interchangeable. If i find a bronco 2 at a wrecker but only the front drive shaft is there will it work or does it have different ends to go in the tranny and diff? And the length of my current rear drive shaft is 30 7/8 and from reading around on the web i found that they made a few sizes, one is within a couple of inches of mine. do the compress to fit or are they rigid?

[DBrown]

if you plan to keep your truck for any amount of time I would not replace it with that same style shaft.

I went threw 2 of them before I got one from James Duff. Duff has a website but they are expencive. you might find a better deal at bronco graveyard

[Bossanova]

thanks for the reply. I plan on going to the wrecker later this week to have a look. The website says they have a few bronco 2's A 1985 and a couple 88's that are 4x4 and standard. Hopefully they are u-joint style then i can just rebuild them.

Would the rear shaft from an explorer be the same cause they got a bunch of 91's their but they are all automatic?

[DBrown]

honestly I dont know, but measure what you got before you go and ask at the counter. around here they have a system that tells them about interchange.

good luck!

[Ranger Dave]

you cannot use the front driveshaft in the rear. there gonna be 3 different lenghts. one for the C5,one for the 145 and one for the 146/A4LD. your best bet is to use the xplorer rear shaft and yoke. if you have the 145 tranny,it bolts in,with the 146 you have take out about 2in

http://rangerdave.freeforums.org/

[Bossanova]

well i found a replacement shaft at the wrecker the other day and replaced it last night. I thought for sure i had the problem solved when i pulled out the old drive shaft and it fell apart. I took it for a test drive but I'm still getting that grinding noise when I'm de-accelerating. I have a feeling its my transfer-case. How hard is it to swap these out?

[Ranger Dave]

you have it in 4x4 when you hear the grinding noise???

[Bossanova]

no its in 2 wheel i think the motor on the transfer case is not functioning properly. the display tells me its going in 4 wheel but it doesn't feel like it is. i'm going to have put it on jack stands and try to find where the noise is coming from.

[Bossanova]

So after throwing the rear end up and trying to find out where the grinding was coming from it sounds like it's the rear diff. I've never redone a differential before so I'm going to have figure this out before I open everything up. I'm pretty sure it's the 8.8 but I have to find out what gears are in there. I hope its just the pinion shaft bearing. I have a felling it is because it's only making the noise when I let off the gas in gear but if its in neutral there's no noise. Any opinions are welcome.

[JLove1974]

IMO the CV driveshaft is a POS

You need to go to a junkyard and pull the front shaft from a 90-94 explorer 4x4, and the slip yoke from the rear shaft.
There is a writeup on the other bronco two board on how to build a strong and cheap rear shaft with these parts.

My 88 was a CV shaft type and it failed me at URE, so I built one of these for about $40 and put new U joints on it. It's awesome.

[Ranger Dave]

seems to be a waist of a good DC joint to me

[Ranger Dave]

doing the mod above,what tranny is it for????? and that single u-joint shaft doesn't work very well with a lifted B2. been there done that

[JLove1974]

The single joint shaft works fine for up to 3" lift. might have to clearance the joint like the how-to says but it works for the 1350 xfer case and FM146 (88-up BII). It also works for M5OD and A4LD 88-up BII's (trannys the same length as FM146).

I assume this shaft will fit in a 87 and older BII w/ FM145 without any mods at all since they are a longer shaft. But I also assume that if the orig. poster has a CV shaft, it's 88-up...

It's a junkyard $25 driveshaft, so I didn't feel guilty "wasting" the DC part of it. If you have 5+ inches of lift, the DC joint might work. it's too long in stock form for a stock BII like mine. The stock 88 eddie bauer I had had a single u-joint shaft just like it.