Square Drive Shaft?

The driveshaft is and essential parts to making a vehicle move. Once the power moves from the engine to the transmission, it has to get to the axles. This is where the driveshaft comes in, usually it is a long cylinder made of metal that is balanced so that it can spin at high rates without wobbling. Notice I said usually; since I have done my solid axle swap with a Chevy Dana 44 instead of a Toyota axle, I can not go out and buy a stock Toyota driveshaft. This means that I am down a front driveshaft until I can get a custom one done. Tom Woods is the leading drive shaft specialist right now and I was quoted around $350 from them. After doing some research for cheaper alternatives I found that they can be made fairly easily. The supplies needed are five feet of 2.5" square tubing that is 1/4" thick; three feet of 2" square tubing that is 1/4" thick; U-joint attachment from a 1979 Chevy 1/2 ton; a CV joint from an 85 Toyota pickup/4runner. After all of this is collected the process is pretty simple. Measure from the flange to the u-bolts on the axle; subtract the CV, and u-joint length. Then make sure there is about 3-4" of compression room and 10-12 inches of slip. This is because when off road the suspension will flex up and down, which means the driveshaft has to be able to get longer, and shorter. After cutting the tubing, weld the U-joint attachment to the 2" tubing and the CV joint to the 2.5" tubing. Then you simply slide the smaller tubing into the larger tubing and bolt it up. Once this is all done you’ve got a cheaper, yet stronger driveshaft that will take whatever you can throw at it.
That is why I am going to be building one. There are many benefits and it will probably cost me around $100-150 to make. Hopefully I will have it done before the end of the class and I can post up the final product.