Damaged rear driveshaft slip yoke

Why this option

The rear impact drove the driveshaft forward into the transfer case. It slid back into the slip yoke by hand and looked fine at the time, but on 4 Oct 2026 the mouth of the female splined yoke turned out nicked and peened, most likely from running partly engaged. The transfer-case output splines are reported sound. A complete new shaft at $308 came in under a slip yoke plus a U-joint kit, and skips pressing U-joints.

Trade-offs

This reverses an earlier journal entry that put the driveshaft in the column of things that looked fine. Ford's catalog lists the slip yoke, flange yoke, U-joints and the four flange bolts as included with the shaft; the bolts were ordered separately as well, since they are one-time-use and the workshop manual says to discard them. Transfer-case fluid gets checked once it is back together, because the yoke was out of the case.

Photography

What it actually cost