well, to make a long story short, heading home from school up in scranton, pa back to the poconos. i begin to hear driveline noise, not the engine. any pseed over 25 mph that son of a b*tch screams like a box of marbles rattling around. i thought my transfer case took a dump, dropepd her in 4wd for giggles at 30 mph and once nice loud clunk. anyway i got the truck to my transmission guy. hes got the thing on the lift doing 40 mph up in the air in 4wd, notices my right tire isnt spinning. the splines on axle shaft that the half shaft rides on is all stripped out. went under the truck with the owner and showed me the damage at 103,000 miles, he's surprised that non greaseable unit lasted that long... hmm go figure. out of the truck for a few days, so i get the 45 mpg toyota yaris.. woohoo.. think im with varsis with doing dana 60 axle swaps haha.

 

ouch, you think dropping into 4 at 30 had any effect?

hey, my brother lives in the poconos. nice area

 

nah, the problem was already there before i dropped her into 4 hi. pretty much just wondering if she worked herself half way into 4wd. even says i can do a 4hi drop up to 55 mph in the manual so. i was moving so that should of not caused the half shaft to wipe out the splines on the axle shaft since it's already moving to begin with. should have her tomorrow, told my buddy to rip off the driver side shaft and check out the spline condition and CV joint on that as well plus look at my wheel bearings since they are still original at 103K miles, yet they dont have any play. wont hurt to do a little extra preventive maintenance, especially since when you dont have AAA anymore.

 

that sucks at least its fixed now and you didn't get stranded or anything anywhere.

 

Id just do the swap if it's going to cost you more than id say 5k. But if I didn't regear my axle it would have been a lot less for parts. And Tires are whats expensive.

 

hahaha 5k, you're a funny guy... its probabally going to be around $500 for parts and labor, wont be charged for shop time. il try to get pics of the parts tomorrow when i go pick it up, if i pick it up. he's gonna have to dig into the front pumpkin to remove the axle shaft most likely. and yeah threeplay im thrilled it didnt break down on me, again. truck is extremely reliable, just so happened the wear and tear is catching up with me.

 

you should get your splines hardened before you put them back in.

 

well, getting her back tomorrow at a cost of $730... the half shaft costs $480 from the company since they dont make it anymore, let alone that 205 front axle isnt used either anymore. so parts for it are downright expensive. sounds like i got to get some letters written to our favorite manufacturer.

 

heres some pics, notice theres no actual identifiable splines, they're all nubs now.
1030081609a.jpg
axle shaft where it rides in the half shaft
1030081608.jpg

the $480 half shaft, notice how they all look like knubs? that brown junk you see is rust, there are no seals on these units allowing water to come inside the half shaft. non grease able either. the new half shaft has an o ring to prevent this from happening, this is defiantly a engineering fault since there's no sign of dirt contamination either. this will make a nice paper weight in my garage now.

 

I realize this thread is as old as dirt, but this exact same thing just happened to my brother's 2001 Dakota. Where did you get your halfshaft from? I have been looking everywhere and I can't find a dang thing for the solid inner axle. It's a freaking solid steel rod with splines on either end, it can't be that hard to make. Is there any possible way you could measure up your old axle and tell me what the dimensions are like the length, diameter, and spline count? At this point I'm looking into calling Strange or Moser or someone and having this axle custom made. Since it's just a solid piece with splines on either end I figured it couldn't cost near as much to get one made then the $450 you were talking about.