99' XJ 5-speed with a D35, blown pinion.

We are swapping in a 96' 8.25, and everything I've read says the driveshaft is 1" too long, but the u-joints are the same. Well they are not the same. The u-joint in the stock 99' shaft is much larger than what the 8.25 takes. What the hell is going on here?

And on a side not, the 96' 8.25 e-brake cable are different, so we had so swap over the cables from the 99' D35.

Definitely the same u joint.

Yokes are not the same. Can't be the same joint?

From the factory later Cherokees came with only 2 kinds of u-joints: 5-760X for the front axle shaft joints and 5-1310X for front and rear driveshaft u-joints. It could be that someone changed the yoke at some point.

This 99' is a bone stock, one-owner with 294k, dealer maintained for everything, right down to the wiper blades.

I'm thinking the yoke on the 8.25 we got from the 96' could have possibly been changed?

A stock yoke is around 3-3/16" between the tabs for a 5-1310X u-joint.

It looks like your 8.25 donor has a stock yoke and your D35 has something else.

This is the shaft out of the 99', which fits the D35 correctly, but not the 8.25

Right. Which means you have a 1330/1350 u-joint in that shaft. This is NOT stock.

1310 u-joints are stock and would measure 3.219.

So the shaft/yoke combo on the 99' isn't stock. That's pretty confusing, would the factory town package have called for a larger yoke and u-joints on the D35? Will a 1310 fit this shaft? I assume no. Looks like we need to find a 5-speed 8.25 shaft.

This has been such a clusterf*ck. Jeep came with a blown rear. A D35 with 3:07's was impossible to find. Finally find an 8.25 with 3:07's and its far from "bolts right in".

I missed where you had a 5-speed.

The factory lists it as a 1330 u-joint.

You can get a conversion u-joint 1310 to 1330.

For example, Spicer 5-134X

You could also change the yoke, get a different driveshaft, or have your existing driveshaft modified.

Problem solved with that conversion u-joint, thank you!

I'd still like to get to the bottom of this. Why did this 99' XJ AX-15 D35 have a rear driveshaft in it with a 1350 joint and yoke if XJ's only came with 1310's?

If the factory lists it as a 1330 joint, then it cannot be said that "they all take the same u-joint"