I'm with Antichrist on this one ant. Just buy one from Tom Woods because by the time you spend the time, effort, and money to get all the parts, find a junked DII with a good cardon yoke, and rebuild the whole thing you could spend just a little more, get a beefed up TM shaft with 1310 UJ's and save yourself a lot of headache in the future. Shouldn't be that much more to buy the TM shaft. I have heard great things about them from everyone that has one. I am considering putting one on my DI at a later date. Good luck!

 

What kind of price are we talking here for the ones from Tom Woods? They're a bit vague on those details on the site.

 

they run about $350

 

Bought a Tom Woods driveshaft. $390 shipped, which isn't much more than the remanufactured one, so that sounds like a fair deal to me!

 

Antman - Rebuilt my front drive shaft today and had the same problem you had. I pulled the centering ball (actually it's a monoball) out of the casing, leaving the casing snug inside the yoke. However, it was actually a blessing in disguise. Just popped a carbide rotary file into the Dremel and cut a slot in the casing. Took 5 minutes max.

 

I just rebuilt mine and ran into the same problem,I used a slide hammer to remove the ball and it was a pain In the a**!

 

Does anyone know if there is a certain torque needed for putting the drive shaft back in, or do i just crank it down super tight?

 

balance by pros..

 

I really envy you guys who get the shafts where the centering ball pops out easily. It took me and my retired mechanic grand father 8 hours,a oxy-acetylene torch, and a Dremel, to get the ball out of my stock drive shaft.

I have a friend who is an independent Rover shop owner who has since decided he isn't doing them himself any longer, so I know it wasn't just me. I ran it on my truck for 20k miles before deciding to swap it out for a Tom Woods heavy duty drive shaft that I picked up from Will Tillery.

My rebuilt one was fine, but I run my truck hard off-road and just in the past year it has seen abuse in sand, mud, and deep water in places like the Cove (VA), Rausch Creek (PA), The Wilds (OH), and the Maine Winter Romp (ME). Not having a way to grease the centering ball was going to be a serious problem eventually.

If I ever have to do this again for a truck I didn't plan to off-road, I'd buy the parts and pay a driveshaft shop to do it. For any truck you plan to take out 4 wheeling though, I'd suggest just biting the bullet and getting either a GBR or Tom Woods HD front driveshaft.

 

I went with lrSilver2001's buddy, Dynamic Drive Line. It was $295 shipped, and showed up greased and ready to be installed.
One thing that would have helped me was to know all tools needed for the job ahead of time (I am just talking about removal and reinstallation).
I needed:
3/8" ratchet drive
3/8" extention set (they came in a pack of three from Walmart for like $11, I couldn't find them at Harbor Freight).
9/16" socket
9/16" open end/box end combo wrench
LR jack
3 ton jack stands ($24 from Harbor Freight)

I removed the front end of the shaft first, and then disconnected the rear. Reinstalled rear end first, then front.