i was watching extreme 4x4 on spike tv this morning and they are building a '82 pickup into a rock buggy. when they were installing the drive train i noticed they used two pieces of square tubing that slide in and out of eachother with a ujoint welded on each end to make a long travel driveshaft. and i said wow this could save me a bunch of money on new driveshafts after i get my longtravel installed. are these reliable driveshafts? is this a good and common way of building them? rock buggy only or would they be too unreliable on my daily driver?

 

i have one in the front on the 4runner, its basically just a cheap way of getting tons of slip, the only downside is that they tend to be a little "clanky" and are hard to get perfect (mine vibrates a little above 40mph)

 

so not a good idea for a daily driver that occasionaly will go 75-80 on freeways?

 

for the front, its perfectly fine if you have manual hubs (which you should) for the rear though, not so if its driven at highway speeds.

i run a square d-shaft up front, cheap to make and the d-shaft doesnt spin at all on the street so its fine.

 

Search on Pirate, there is tons of info there. Most people can't do over 50 mph due to vibrations. But there is no real reason to be doing over 50 in 4wd. Definitely worth it for the front.