Seriously man, I'm not trying to discredit you, it just seemed that you were a little confused about what his issue was. And the driveline "clunk" is a huge issue with the 97-03s as well. My truck does it horribly and lubing the splines on the drive shafts only fixes it for a couple days at best. But that's irrelevent. The fact is that as far as the drive line goes (from the tranny back) there are not many diffferences between the old body style and new body style. As far as I'm concerned they both use similar, if not identical, slip yokes, and the rearends are exactly the same. I have a pretty fair amount of experience with both of those so I feel that even though I may not own an 04+ I still can bring a lot to the table.

And as far as a pissing contest, I leave those in GD. I was merely trying to explain to you (since it appeared you were a bit confused) what he was talking about. A screwed up slip yoke cannot cause play in your axleshafts. The original question was
I, along with a couple other people, explained to him why there is play in there.

 

Y'know what? Fair enough. I wasn't confused in the least. I understood his question clearly. You kind of keep harping on the axle vs. driveshaft thing. I saw that as well. He's complaining about a clunk when turning. I just dealt with that. I had a '97 for ten years. I had the take off clunk, but never any issues when turning. My '04 on the other hand had a clunk when turning. And you are correct, the slip yoke lube will only take care of it temporarily. There does not appear to be a permanent solution. I understand the fundamentals of the rear end and the physics of why there is play in there. 3mm = ~1/8", 5mm is <1/4". Until we have the specs., it just might turn out to be acceptable. As I have said repeatedly, you might be right. But I might also. The main point I've been trying to make is this: When someone is asking for help troubleshooting, all information is helpful, even if it turns out to be incorrect. Again, as I stated before, it will be interesting to see how it turns out. Cheers.

 

To the OP: You said that one side has 3 or 4 times as much play as the other, but you also said that one side has 3 mm and the other side has 5 mm of play. Is that a typo? I think 3-5 is acceptable, but if you meant 3-15 or something then you likely have a problem.