My rear driveshaft broke while driving on the interstate today. Not sure if it was the speed, the few hundred lbs load in the bed, the lift, or all of the above. Maybe it was just age.

I don't know much about what every piece is called, but it seems like a cap came off the u-joint cross.
How do I fix this and/or upgrade it for relatively cheap?

 

that is a bad universal joint. should be a easy fix. it is probably a good idea to replace both of them

 

I'm looking at new joints on a couple sites and there's a few different sizes. How do I find out what size I need?

 

best thing to do is just go into your local Napa or autozone or wherever and tell them you need some new u joints, honestly they are pretty cheap and easy to change. if you have a grease gun, a vice, a socket to use to press the u joint out of the driveshaft and a wrench to take the caps off that hold it to the rearend your good to go

 

Yup. They are around $10 a piece, and don't take long to do, especially if you have a torch to help.

When I read the title of this, I thought you meant you actually broke your driveshaft. Like the actual shaft. I was expecting massive carnage. Your driveshaft angle looks fine. It was just probably just old. If you were going too fast, or moving too much weight for a good u-joint, you'd have killed your truck first.

 

Though I will say, I'm not a fan of the stacked blocks. That doesn't have anything to do with the u-joints, just an OCD safety thing. The axle wrap possible from blocks that big certainly can't be great for the u-joints either, but I don't think it has that big of an effect.

 

This is pretty much my first truck, and I always wanted a big lifted truck but didn't know anything about doing it (and was not about to pay someone to do it). So I just bought one that was already done.

I now realize the blocks aren't the best way to do it, but I barely ever drive the truck so I'm just leaving it as is for now.

So I'm pretty sure I figured out what u-joints I need, and decided to go with non-greasable Moog 245 (I figured the non-greasable would be best since I probably wouldn't grease them as often as needed, if ever).

Went out to the truck to see the "both" that wolfie mentioned, I see the one at the rear axle that's broken, one at the transmission that looks just like it, and one at the center support bearing that doesn't have the clamps to hold them in like the others do and is just held in by solid metal.

So Do I replace the middle one too, is it the same as the others, and how would I go about removing and replacing that one? I watched the video in this thread: https://dodgeforum.com/forum/1st-gen...em-myself.html and shouldn't have a problem doing the two end ones, but that middle one has me scratching my head.