dsanow92,
That truly sucks! I looked at that boat several times on boattrader when I was in the market. Similarly, my 2005 also had u-joint issues. My boat had previously sat outside with the outdrive raised for an extended period of time. I knew it had prior water intrusion as they had to replace the bellows and gimbal bearing prior to me purchasing it. In the middle of last summer, I too started to experience some slight vibrations, especially under hard turning. I had my mechanic take a look at it and he said it would make it through summer, but I should plan on new u-joints during winterization. The vibrations progressively got worse, but we fortunately made it to the end of summer. After he showed me my old u-joints, I told him we were cutting it too close and should have changed them mid-summer, and he definitely agreed. He didn't think they would deteriorate further as fast as they did. I ended up replacing the drive shaft as well because you could see where the joints were starting to eat away one of the eyes on the drive shaft. Another note is there was just a little bit of rust on the u-joints, but not what I would refer to as "rusted". However, you could feel them binding up easily just by moving them with your hands. All in all, I think I was just lucky. I'm not trying to rub salt in your wound, but had you caught this in time, you would have had <$500 parts bill for the u-joints and drive shaft combined.
The point is there are at least 3 2005/06 FW with 8.1L engines with relatively low hours that had u-joint failures, all on this little thread. If my memory serves me correct, our models are right about the time frame when they switched to the grease-less joints. I've never heard of u-joints being a chronic problem on this setup before, but maybe I've never heard of it because the problem is just now starting to show itself. Could the metal used not have been spec'd for the tourque of the 8.1L? I'm just reaching for straws, but maybe Graham, Lou, Mike and others are right and these failures may not be a coincidence. I would push the issue if I were you.
As my mechanic wisely said after I told him to also replace the drive shaft, "You've got 400+ HP pushing a 5,000 lb boat across the water all depending on this little shaft / joint assembly. You really don't want to take any chances for that to fail!".
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