+1 - Have talked to him on other forums, good guy, knows his stuff!

 

i would imagine at some point FRPP is going to start making them but until they do i'll continue doing it this way. since the shaft i start with is in a current production vehicle it won't be discontinued for a while. it's just the dealers don't stock many of them. i have a guy at a ford wharehouse now who helps me locate them from all over but usually just 2 or 3 from random places. they ship to him and he ships to me. he said on his next order he will get a few to keep in stock for me so i don't have to wait so long to get them.
the problem with making them from scratch is that it would cost so much to get a driveline company to fabricate them (thats why the rest are $200 more) and quality would never be as good as the factory shafts i start with. some of the other shafts will not work well with automatic transmissions. mine do because they were designed for the ranger with a 5R55s trans and an 8.8 rear. it is the new version replacement shaft for warranty problems ford had in the 03-04 rangers. it's now the current production piece on all rangers with 126"WB 4x4's.
the real test for me is going to be this weekend. jbailer is coming over for me to install one in his car. he has tried two different aluminum driveshafts from other places and both vibrated. since mine is also an auto and i didn't have any problems with vibration we are going to test and see once and for all if those driveshafts were the problem or if there is another issue that is masked by the stock driveshaft.

oh and thanks AZ and hawg for the support!