I bought a 2000 Dodge RAM 2500 4x4 as a project truck for me and my son. Doing a lot of maintenance work that had been neglected. Anyway, the front drive shaft u-joints were rusted bad, so I decided if I'm going to replace them, I might as well replace the rear as well.

Today we pulled the rear driveshaft out and one of the u-joint caps just slides in/out of the yoke by hand, and no press/tools needed. The cap on the other end of this u-joint was pressed in. After removing the u-joint I tried out my replacement u-joint cap and it too will slide in/out completely freely.

That being said, my question is this: I'm guessing that this means I have to buy a rear driveshaft as I know the caps are supposed to be pressed in and I'm thinking that having 1 u-joint where one of it's caps can slide in/out by hand will only spell trouble for the future.

Before I buy I knew rear driveshaft, I wanted to through this situation out to the more experienced mechanics here and get their thoughts.

Thanks in advance! cal

 

Could you just get the driveshaft repaired? Might not be much cheaper, but at least a little.

 

Yeah take it to a place that makes drive shafts they should be able to cut off the old yoke and weld on a new one.