Newfiedan

So for those who do not know the factory drive shaft has staked U joints, that are not serviceable, and as such ford in all their engineering glory says replace the drive shaft or at least that is the answer they had for me to the tune of nearly $800. Undeterred I decided to take it off to my driveline guys as I do not want to take a chance on messing this up (if it were ordinary u joints I would have done it myself without question) anyhow long story short he knew what needed to be done and informed me that they had fabricated their own spacers to install serviceable u joints into the factory driveshaft. All said and done with new ones installed and balanced it rung in at $380. The process from my driveline guy is use a hole saw that fits tightly into the hole to remove the staked ring then install new u joints and spacers and good to go. If you guys want the spacers they charge $10 each for them and I do have access to them just pm me if you want them. Now no more squeak from my front bloody u joint (thank god, sounded like a belt squeal) and I have 2 heavy duty spicer u joints that are serviceable installed.

Hollabakzach23

Neat! I'll keep ya in mind!

gone postal

It aqll depends on the shaft. Some are staked, some have the regular retainers.

I looked through junkyards and found a shaft with the regular U-joints for $180 and put new U-joints in the driveshaft.

powerranger262

There is a special tool to cut those staked u joints out. Pretty much like you are talking about, kind of like a hole saw.
But like said above, i wouldn't even mess around with it. Junkyard driveshaft is the way to go.