Is this a bad u-joint? Pics included in post

[Jimmy9190]

Thanks again. Sounds like the Brute Force will do fine. One question I have is you may see in my pics that there is some degree of surface rust on my drive shaft. I live in Florida so it is not rusted real bad like they have on trucks from up north with the road salt and snow. I wonder if I should have the drive shaft blasted and rebalanced like you did, or is just a slight amount of rust OK?

 

[Trav]

As long as its not flaking its not a big deal if there are larger particles flaking off if you scrape it then have it blasted painted and balanced.
It doesn't take a lot to put the shaft out of balance and that can cause vibration.

Mine was worse than yours but if you have vibration issues then i would do it. Its a bit of a pain but worth it.
Find a drive shaft shop and set it up with them first. I paid $100 for both to be balanced and had a metal fabrication shop do the shot blasting i think it was about $20.
I installed the joints and did the painting.

Edit: If it has no vibration and you just change the joints don't paint it. Painting can throw it off balance.

 

[carkey351]

x 2 on the joints with grease zerks. the ones on the truck look to be factory sealed units; and while they have their place, the greasables serve most people better because you can hit them with a pump of grease at oil changes or other service times.

 

[Jimmy9190]

Thanks for the tip but I went with non-greaseable sealed u-joints. The Brute Force sealed ones are said to be extremely tough. I found a forum with a bunch of guys with built Camaros and other GM F-Bodies and a lot of them are running the sealed Brute Force u-joints and taking the car down the drag strip on the weekends. If the Brutes are good enough for that they should be just fine in my old truck.