Drive shaft replacement.

[Mad Max]

New to this group and I’m sure this has been discussed to death but I’d like to share what I did. My ‘08 ST Limited developed a growling vibration. My transmission guy told me it was the U Joints in the unserviceable drive shaft. I can’t believe they even make those but I found that unacceptable and wasn’t going to replace it with another unserviceable one if I could help it. Did a lot of research on line and blogs like this ( that is how I found this one). Low and behold I found a YouTube video of a 2008 Sport Trac drive shaft. You can search YouTube for it. It is from a company that builds high performance drive shafts for cars and trucks. It is called Tulsa Drive Shafts. They redesigned the shafts with replaceable U joints. Very high quality for about $650ish before tax, free shipping. I called them and talked to the owner and discussed some of my concerns. Super nice guy. I ordered the shaft and it came. The box was torn in two but the shaft un damaged. I have limited mechanical skills but after a few YouTube videos I dove under the truck. I was concerned about a few things that turned out to be not too bad. Most difficult was getting the bolts loosened. All in all it was not that hard and I took my time to not screw up. Had a little difficulty finding the Torque specs for everything but was able to locate with a friends help. Best of all I was able to do it all by myself and saved about $700 I think. I highly recommend Tulsa Drive Shafts. Check them out if you have the same issue. Max

 

[Todd Z]

Yeah, sorry to burst your bubble but this is nothing new. There is fort Wayne, doorman, Colorado ( who sucks) and many others making shafts for the 4wd. 2wd is serviceable.

also the rear joint and front CV head IS serviceable IF you know what to do with the proper tools. you can also do the carrier bearing on the 4wd, BUT again specialized tools.

 

[Mad Max]

Yeah, sorry to burst your bubble but this is nothing new. There is fort Wayne, doorman, Colorado ( who sucks) and many others making shafts for the 4wd. 2wd is serviceable.

also the rear joint and front CV head IS serviceable IF you know what to do with the proper tools. you can also do the carrier bearing on the 4wd, BUT again specialized tools.

Not worth it to me. Not my skill set, not the right tools, not worth the time. The one I got from Tulsa Drive Shafts is extremely high quality and I’m thrilled with it and I could do it all by myself. If someone else has all it takes to do the replacements then more power to them. Just thought I would share what I did as an option.

 

[Gary Glass]

That's great...I just went through all that myself another one of ford engineers... better ideas...like having no dip stick to check the transmission fluid...