New drive shaft

Thanks.

As it turns out- there are only two shops in San Diego which balance driveshafts.

The one closer to me (in El Cajon)... Single man operation, super grumpy, apparently the best at what he does, but lacks basic human / business acumen. He told me he couldn't work on my drive shaft before I even opened my mouth. The other 4x shops I called to see where they took their work to, said someone should have warned me before calling him.

Driveshaft pro is the other... I'll have to find out what they charge without the middle man for a whole new shaft.

 

There are certainly plenty of stories from both perspectives- I read as many as I could find before I got one.

But a 1-piece driveshaft is simpler and I haven't had any problems with mine yet. They're not the only place to get a driveshaft, but Tom Woods makes a good product, has excellent customer service, and I can't recommend them enough.

 

I don't know where you are in the bay area, but if you're close to Rohnert Park Transmission, they've been great and fairly priced with me. Before I found them though, I had my local les schwab replace one of my u joints. They did a great job and I was in and out pretty quick.

 

So I’m in the same boat as the OP, although my truck is a 96 manual extracab. I’ve found 3 viable options, each more expensive than the last:

-A Cardone shaft from RockAuto for $500. Obviously the cheapest option, but parts quality may be dubious.

-A custom shaft from my local driveshaft shop for around $800 after tax. They use Spicer and 1310 parts, which should be better than whatever Cardone uses.

-OEM from a parts wholesaler from the FB group for $1060 plus shipping. I was surprised to find this option since everyone I’d talked to had said the part was NLA from Toyota.

-I also called one of those big driveshaft shops out west, and they surprisingly quoted me around 1400 for a new two piece. I figured they’d be cheaper than my local place due to their higher volume.

Just thought I’d put this out there in case anyone finds this thread while searching like I did. I think I’m still gonna go with my local driveshaft shop.

 

I ended up replacing the U joints and center support bearing instead, which solved the issue. That was the best move for me, avoiding any balance issues etc.

 

I might’ve done that, but my slip yoke was also busted, which is a surprisingly expensive part, even at junkyards.

 

Looks like Tom Woods no longer sells driveshafts for Tacomas because of the aforementioned driveline vibration issues. Looks like customers were buying it in hopes that it would solve the problem but then returning it if it didn't. They link to this company's page for a 1-piece aluminum driveshaft:
https://knoxvilledriveline.com/prod...-piece-conversion?_pos=1&_sid=bb9b0c592&_ss=r

 

There’s a reason they were two piece from the factory.

 

Cost? Value engineering?
A 1-piece is simpler but likely more expensive to build and balance, especially extrapolated over the number of vehicles produced. Every bit counts for that shareholder value, ya know?
But it seems pretty clear that driveline vibration issues can happen regardless of the number of pieces in your driveshaft.