ext cab one peice

[gnardoom]

my truck is bearly driveable with the effed up 2 peice. i have a new shaft for it from an explorer, the only thing holding me back from the swap is the u joint to u joint measurement if anybody knows it or wants to measure their own that would be great. my truck is a 92 ranger 4x4 ext cab

 

[4x4junkie]

The Explorer shaft will be too short, you need one from a '98up Ranger Supercab ('98-'00 steel shafts preferable).

 

[Ranger5.0]

you can also look into having a steel one made for you. I had to get custom shafts when i did my swap and they were veary reasonable.

 

[Yellowsplash]

Like Junkie said, you want to get a 1 piece driveshaft out of a 98-99 ext cab 4x4 truck - Doesnt matter what transmission. This should have a 2.5 transfer case flange and 3" differential flange. Supposedly in 2000, ford went with a bigger transfer case flange (3" on both sides). While you can swap the output shaft out for the newer style, it adds more work. Its much easier to just stick with a direct replacement....
It is also possible to use a "conversion" u-joint to use a 2000 and up driveshaft rather than replacing the output shaft. Use the search function to find more info about this...

 

[gnardoom]

im aware of this, i need the measurement to give to the driveline shop so they can get to work on the explorer shaft. 98 shaft is no good because there arent any up here, i have made 50+ phone calls and had nothing, not even for a b4000. what i really need is the u joint to u joint measurement of a 98 shaft, or the measurement from weld to weld of an explorer shaft that somebody had built for their ext cab ranger. also, it is impossible to measure my truck because there is too much shit in the way.

 

[gnardoom]

looks like im going to have to get it built 5 times until it fits right

 

[4x4junkie]

So what... they're re-tubing it then?

The shaft is 62" flange-flange. I'm not sure they'll be able to tube it that long without going to a larger diameter tube.

 

[gnardoom]

why not, it will most likely be slightly thicker

 

[4x4junkie]

A long thin shaft will want to "whip" out as it spins. See what they say, maybe they can do it, although Ford didn't (the '98-'00 S/C Ranger shaft is 3.5" O.D., IIRC, the one you have is 2.5")

 

[Sasquatch_Ryda]

After denting and bending my one piece shaft out of a 98 ranger that I put in my 91 I had the drive line shop here re-tube the long section of my old 2 piece with a smaller diameter tube with a much thicker wall. The 1 piece shaft always rubbed hard on my gas tank skid plate even with lots of trimming under full flex situations, so the smaller diameter thicker wall shaft fixed that. I've got no vibration problems with the smaller diameter.

 

[gnardoom]

i had one built 59 inchs u joint to u joint. even with 3.5 inch tube it clears the gas tank skid plate, the explorer axles pumpkin is moved over enough so that it clears everything. the driveline shop said i would need at least 3 inch tube.