The U Joints in the drive shaft. Full visual inspection. As long as you are troubleshooting this would be a great first step.

The nipple only lets you drive without it, if you have the nipple.

Since you might be removing your front drive shaft soon you should pre-soak the nuts on the drive shaft bolts with penetrating solution to make it easier.

While you are doing that take a good look at the U Joints. Look for rust, corrosion, or breakage of the caps.

You can also put the truck up on jack stands and in neutral rotate the driveline by turning a front wheel by hand. Safety first of course... You will need to do this to change the front drive shaft anyway as you need to rotate the shaft to get to all 4 bolts. While you turn the drive line listen for unusual noises other than the usual slack.

Good Luck!

 

Only the front one has a grease fitting on it. Everything is tight but that don’t mean crap I have learned on theses. Tight mean nothing can still be messed up lol

 

New one ordered will be here on Tuesday

 

also, get new nuts or use a drop of threadlocker blue... the ridges get beat up easily....9/16th! put a block behind rear wheels, jack up the front end, put transmission into neutral, parking break off, put transfer case into neutral. Now you can turn the front tire and get at all the nuts. If the flanges stick at one end, just remove the free driveshaft end, and use the driveshaft as leverage to pry the other end off...

Also, don't trust the flange to hold the head of the bolts at the transfer case. Put a box wrench on them too, while tightening or loosening the nuts....

 

comes with new hardware too and I have blue thread lock

 

Took the driveshaft out today to get ready a for Tuesday. And yup she be bad...

 

Wow what a difference a new front drive shaft makes lol