Well, I got the new drive shaft installed. Total cost came in just under 300 shipped to my door. I would have had a drive line shop fab me up one for install but... well... they wanted close to 500 for it. On top of that they didn't install one of the bolts for my exhaust I came to find out when I took it in the first time. Looks like I'm off to get another stainless steel metric nut and bolt+washers. sigh....
Anyways like I was saying: I installed the new drive shaft. OMFG! It's like a completely different car. None of the weird noises that I just assumed were my cars natural noises, no more harsh vibrations that I attributed to road deformations and my hard suspension. It's a completely amazing feeling. It makes me want to fix the rest of the car up and get it looking and feeling just as amazing as this.
I still plan on cutting off the old drive shaft spline portion so I never have to drain tranny fluid when I pull it. But my brother-in-law doesn't have an oxy/acet torch I could use to make short work of it. Which leaves me little recourse right now (unless WE3RX7, do you has any tools I could use to chop it up?)
I still have a vibration in the rear of the car, but it's very minute and I think it's from the rear being out of alignment. I'll take it in to fire stone on sunday (if they're open) and see if they can't do an alignment for me (I do have a life time alignment thing with them).
And since I swapped drive shafts, it's amazing hitting boost. So smooth with none of the noise I used to associate with it and none of the vibrations either.
