Drive shaft on 03 2WD 6Cyl - replace?

After enduring squeaking for about 3 months, then pinging, then vibration I took it to the dealer who tells me the whole 2 piece drive shaft needs to be replaced. $1,700. I found a new DS on line for $595. I have quite a few tools and decent mechanical experience. I have many questions including: Do I really need to replace the entire drive shaft? If I do, how difficult is this job? Where is the best place to find step by step instructions? Thanks!

 

i replaced my whole driveshaft on my prerunner because i had the same problem but all i thought was wrong where the u-joints and the center support bearing so i replaced them and still had bad vibration so looked at the cardan joint that connects the two peice driveshaft together and saw the it had a real bad crack. the dealer quoted me about the same price. but i found a junk yard about 3 hours away that had a drive shaft with only 70k on it off an 02 prerunner for 130 went ahead and put new u-joints in it to be on the safe side and bolted in place onlt took mabey 15min. or less to remove it there are 10 bolts to remove the whole thing.

 

google car-part.com it searches junkyard inventory for parts near you. best bet for getting a cheap driveshaft.

 

I bought a manual. Swore about 30 years ago I was done working on cars but things change. I see it says the cardan joints can't be rebuilt. I went to the parts store and they have U-Joints in stock cheap but I guess there are some u-joints and some cardan joints. I'm picking it up at the dealer tonight and will look at it. Thanks for the used part tip.

 

its not hard at all to change out the ds,its even easier to do it when you have an extra set of hands.using jackstands to take the weight helps alot to. also one thing to remember is the orientation of the ds,youre going to need to put in back in the way it came out or youll get vibration. oh and chalk the wheels and put park brake on before you drop the ds or itll want to roll away if ur on any kind of slope.

 

yea it will roll away

 

Circling back around some years later... despite my dealer telling me otherwise, there are grease fittings up and down the drive shaft that need to be lubricated periodically. Iirc, there are 8 of them. I think failure to do this led to my early drive shaft failure and to me almost having to replace the drive shaft a second time.