I drove my truck, unregistered and uninsured, down to the Ford dealer today. I did between 20 and 25 MPH the whole way, except for the last few hundred yards where I gunned it up to 40 and felt the truck try to shake itself apart. I found out that nobody sells driveshafts for trucks that old, so I was going to bring the front and rear driveshafts up to Dave’s Drivelines in Provo (right near where I work) and have them rebuild, recondition, and balance both of them. I was just going to remove the rear driveshaft after I drove it down to Community Motors, but the guy at the service desk there told me they have a shop in Emery County that they work with who’ll do all that work for me. So I went home and fished my front driveshaft out of my garage and brought it back down to the dealer and left it in my truck.
I don’t know if I can even afford to fix everything that’s wrong with my truck, but they’re going to check everything out and give me an estimate, then I can pick and choose what I want done and what can wait ’til I have more money. The things I absolutely need fixed are the rear driveshaft and/or output shaft (including new spiders, caps, bearings, snap rings, etc), the transfer case and/or transmission oil leak, and the voltage regulator (which keeps draining my battery). I also need a new tie-rod end and a new ball joint on the front end in order to pass a safety inspection, but I can always take it to my wife’s uncle to get it inspected–my vehicles always seem to pass inspection there for some reason. =)