Good evening, I've been working out the bugs on my 96 Dakota for a few months now. Now the time has come to address steering and suspension. I have quite a bit of slop in the steering wheel and I know part of it is caused by the intermediate shaft the upper u-joint is a little worn. What really concerns me though is the gap between the rack and the shaft where it slides on. Can somebody with some experience with this subject take a look and tell me if it's normal, needs to be fixed, or is missing a piece. Also, if anybody knows where to get an intermediate shaft for less than my right ******** I would greatly appreciate it. Everything I've found which is not much has been in the $300 range which I think is ridiculous. Anyway I hope everybody has a great night.

 

The coupler just grabs the splines you see, and is held in place by the pinch-bolt there. That's is perfectly normal.

You *might* be able to find a u-joint for your shaft just by the dimensions.... Lawnmower shiop could likely match one up for you. Probably less than 20 bucks....

 

great idea, ill give it a shot!

 

Just a quick update with a video and pic. I went out to the boneyard looking for other vehicles that use the same shaft as mine. I found one that I thought was going to work out of a first gen Grand Cherokee. Dimensions seem to line up perfectly. However when I got back the part that pulled into the spine in the column was completely different. Back to the drawing board. Just as a heads up, and this is something I learned years ago and forgot apparently. I had been searching high and low on Google as my only search engine. On a whim I switched over to a different browser and search engine and lo and behold they found a video on YouTube that spells out exactly how to fix it not replace it. I was aware that there are universal replacements joints available however when you go to search for them there's hundreds of different configurations and sizes and using a language I don't really understand. If you don't want to watch the video that I'm going to post, it's the original video only two and a half minutes long. What you need to do is cut the top of the cut the bad universal joint on top off in the middle touch the ears that hold it on. The joint will come apart of that point and you'll be left with two ears that stick up and what looks like a solid piece of steel going all the way down. In the cup part where the universal joint will normally sit are two welds. All the way down we'll see the metal separate. Give the cup portion a couple of TAPS in a little fall right off. Taking clean up your edges a little bit then go online to Amazon or whoever and search for a three-quarter inch DD by 3/4-in DD universal joint replacement. I found mine on Amazon same day delivery for 15 bucks. It came last night slides right on and the truck drives like a new truck now. It looks a little hokey came with Alan screws to set it on the shaft and 10 mm nuts to cinch the bench pinch bolt down. They're about four times as long as they need anything so they stick out that they don't interfere with anything. I know I can't be the only person that's been in this situation so that's why I wanted to post the video pics show that it's a relatively simple fix that doesn't cost a lot of money.
[img alt="https://youtu.be/9jCHkY_xJtA?si=qOPQ9OkucEMAiifI
Here is the original video"]https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/dodgeforum.com-vbulletin/2000x1124/img_20250304_161021664_hdr_0715bea445cfb30523d8d75 e8b8e46969aabc2bc.jpg[/img]

You Tube

Here is the original video