Painting the driveshaft will throw it off balance. After you paint it you would have to rebalance the shaft.

 

I suggest POR15 (paint over rust), brush or spray on. If you spray it you probably wont need to rebalance the shaft. I brushed the whole frame and diffs on my last truck after 5 years of driving on salty snowy roads and it looked brand new, clean it up quickly with a wire brush and plaster it on!

http://www.por15.com/

 

I guess I got lucky--The drive shaft in my 09 is aluminum! I changed my oil the other day, and stuck a magnet to it , and it's just like the hood, no magnetic attraction at all. I wondered why it had no rust.

 

Same here...aluminum. March 09 build date.

 

Huh...weird. Why would they bother going to the trouble of making some out of aluminum, but not all of them? That has to be cast in a completely different way than steel does, right? Mine was built in 03/09, too, and mine's all rusty. Built in a different plant, maybe?

 

my 04 was nice, thought it might have been an aluminum shaft, correct me if i am wrong, but it stayed nice silverish alum color, 09 has surface rust, not showing the truck so no problem, its normal.

 

Aluminum is a couple of hundred dollars more too...My build is 2/11/09 and the drive shaft is a hunk of rust, lol. It will be cleaned up with naval jelly, washed in vinegar and painted with a good ole can of rustoleum! And BTW...painting your drive shaft does not affect the balancing...I've had several custom made, and then painted, and some have them powder coated after the balancing...it doesn't change a thing.

 

I was surprised to learn that some are steel. My 05 Dak was also aluminum.

 

They outlawed led paint over thirty years ago, lol!.

 

Looked up drive shafts in the online catalog. 9 Different parts ranging from $155 to $560 depending on 2wd, 4wd, shift on the fly, shift on demand, cab size and box size.