I chose to make a square drive shaft mainly because I spent all my money on the rest of the truck, leaving me broke! I built this shaft for $25 in steel with the help of some friends. It works pretty good, but of course being square, it is by no means balanced. I am able to get up to about 34-40 MPH before it vibrates like crazy. But my only other alternative is a $300 drive shaft.
For the outer tube, I used 2.5" seamless square tubing with a .25" wall. For the inner tube, i used 2.0" seamless square tubing with a .25" wall. The 2.0 slides in the 2.5 very smoothly and is very strong. The seamless tubing is EXTREMELY hard to find. I tracked it down at a welding shop, where they used it to build trailer hitches. Most metal shops though I didn't know what I was talking about when I asked for seamless. Maybe it's not technically seamless, but the seams have been smoothed out to allow another tube to slide in and out.
I used my stock front drive shaft that has a CV at one end and a standard single u-joint at the other. Only downside is that the IFS 86-95 front drive shafts have less angle to them compared to the 79-85 front drive shafts. But there is a fairly easy way to modify the IFS drive shaft to give the same angle as the earlier ones. The article from 4x4wire.com is here. Basically I took the joint apart, ground down some of the metal, and put it back together again.
First thing to do is to cut the ends off the old drive shaft. Then, grind down the excess tube so that the CV end fits in the large tube, and the single u joint fits in the small tube. Clean all the surfaces really well to be welded. It's also very important to keep the ends centered in the tube. Once you have the ends centered, go ahead and fully weld the ends onto the tube. Leave about 2" of compression travel, and 8-12" of extension. After its all finished, use a generous amount of grease on the slip. Your done!
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