Well the swap is pretty much complete on my buddy's ranger. We swapped a good condition 8.8 out of a 2000 Ranger for the broken one in his 2001. The flange where the drive shaft attaches on both axles looks identical. However, the 4 drive shaft bolts only seem to go about halfway in on the new axle. I cleaned all the loctite off the bolts with a wire brush but they only seem to go in so far and stop. Theres clearly a gap. The bolts are hard to turn. Is there any trick I'm not aware of? Are the flanges different on each axle? My Jeep just has u-joint straps on the rear axle yoke so this is new to me. Funny how you can do an entire axle swap and the part that gives you trouble is the drive shaft.