The time has come, toasted the out put flange u-joint;New D Shaft time- going to do a double cardan at the tc side(6"lift,35's, abusive owner)...the hitches:To lose a spacer I need to have a shaft built; Toyota has a jillion different flange patterns and that scare alot of shops. I'm guessing the flange is a T4 pattern, a TA4....the rear flange is the T4(again-I THINK:2.6" X2.6").
The links are not adjustable so the flange faces are parallel, so I can't cheat the angles here to get outta a DC shaft(not long term anyway).

Anyways....75k, 75 mph...the front u-joint failed completely, and dropped the shaft. DS u-joints greased within last 2 weeks. Seems there is an advisory out about that.....I had a bit of trouble seeing grease come out all 4 bearings, and 1 side of the trunion bearings appeared to be lacking upon close examination after pulling the shaft.Any one have any solid data on the flanges?

Makes a hellacious racket-droppin the front of the rear shaft going that fast. Pull over-no damage because the good fairy was watching, tie up the shaft, go 4 hi, and get the hell off the hiway.

Drove the FJ home(122 miles in 4 hi)and am currently in the middle the replacement process.Just a note, the FWD(FRONT) pumpkin has been hanging with me.863 HWY miles, 215 city miles so far. I do not recommend
anyone do this by the way-the front wheels fight each other when accelerating from dead stop for obvious reasons.My intention is to go 4.56 in the pumpkins, new seals, get a longer driveshaft/slip splines, and rebuild the cv's-or get new front axles, so this is really just a bit of necessity and a bit of experiment.At speed there are no issues, and I keep checking the cv's and pumkins for heat build up with a laser thermometer.I have since nixed the hiway driving,and use it for short hops around town until all the parts show up.My real point in sharing the rest of that was that Toyota does make an impressive product -when they get it all right anyway.Still no metal flakes in the front pumpkin



Now if I can just resist the urge to get into some RCV front axles ....where there is a will, there is a way.