Is the driveshaft with a double cardan joint, unrepairable?

Yes, in my opinion OEM quality and these joints can be removed if they need service unlike OEM

 

Yeah I'm absolutely certain. I've messed with it more hours than I want to admit. I bet the shop that made yours used different parts. I really do think that they are just a middleman that contracts it out which would explain the differences.

 

They actually asked me if I wanted a sealed or greased option when I ordered mine.
Maybe they have changed

 

Yeah, not sure to be honest. I was not given the option at all or else I would have opted for the greaseable every time. Oh well. No biggie. I'm going to replace it with greasable ones and do the others down the line as they wear out. U joints aren't that expensive and they aren't that hard to change out either.

 

So I bought this thing, and immediately returned it because it was way too small.

I did take it to 2 driveshaft places. One of them straight up told me no and that it was from a "pos toyota" (..lol?) and the other place said no as well, but that they could saw off the double cardan joint and weld in a new one, and then balance it for me, all for the low cost of $590..

I'm currently trying to put it back together with great care and hoping I get it to work

 

Toyota says these are unserviceable .......however a few drive-line shops do these....

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/u-joint-replacement-questions.749275/#post-26691957

For the brave or stupid.....

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/double-cardan-joint.273119/#post-6745013

 

Success! I was able to get it back together after painstaking attention to detail. There’s a trick to getting these to seat properly into the cv joint. I’ll do a write up with some pics later for those interested

 

Just curious where you live thatyou were quoted such a High price .

Then if you were a walk in with no prior business I can understand.

I am lucky to have two good driveline Shops That will rebuild Drive Shafts cheaper then I can buy the parts.

 

Houston, Texas surprisingly.

My theory is that the double cardan joints from from the pre-2001 Tacomas are infamous for having universal joints within the cardan, that were hard to find due to their unique fitment.

I was reading an older thread about this very topic here in Tacoma world, and saw a couple of users point out that only a select few companies manufacture such u-joints, and that very few sellers carried them. You couldn’t even buy them from Toyota. These however, I bought from advance auto parts and were moog brand. They were the exact same as the ones I removed. One of the driveshaft shop’s owner also mentioned that “they don’t sell the ujoints for that thing.. you have to replace the whole thing.” It’s interesting, and I suppose this is something that isn’t very well known.

 

Has anyone experimented with shimming your pinion down and running a standard dline to get rid of the DC? It is a common mod in pre Tacoma toyotas to get rid of the DC and run a single ujoint shaft. I have done it on multiple rigs including my current longbed T100. Personally I dont shim them, i weld in new perches, butquality shims would be fine. My 2nd gen Tundra, newer Fj and newer 4runner all only have single joint shafts so at some point Toyota went away from DCs in some of the models.

 

The toyota double cardon are not servicable as no one makes a replacement u joint for them. the aftermarket ones are all american style double cardon with less angle but servicable u joints, i reached out to California Driveline as well as one more shop out in Riverside California (cant recall the name, but a big reputable Toyota shop) and they also confirmed parts are not made for the oem double Cardon, they offered a decent used one or recommended California Driveline as well. so that is the route, the guys at California Driveshaft were top notch, honest and got the job done in under a day, made me a whole new drive shaft with all new parts. All under 600 bucks.

 

They are serviceable. Check out these videos of people servicing them:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2cI42jRWU0

https://youtu.be/KHKCVC4mvwU