steering shaft woes

It's been quite a while since my last post and this one is mostly for informative purposes. After installing a skyjacker 3" suspension lift kit and changing to yokohama geolander at's LT265/75R16's I noticed a popping noise in my steering and felt it in the driver's floor pan area. I thought it must have been the tie rod located at the pitman arm since I had just beat it a couple of times to swap in a drop pitman arm. Anywho to make it short I then felt the clunk coming from the steering box. Swapped that out, still there. Finally I was able to pinpoint the issue to worn u-joints in my lower steering shaft. Of course you have to buy the whole deal. After ordering an o.e.m. replacement from morris 4x4 center and waiting about a week. It arrived, crown was the brand of replacement part. I replaced the lower steering column bearing, no problem. After trying to install this replacement shaft I noticed it was too short. I returned it, and found out about the borgesen steering shaft, way more expensive but I figured it should be a better bet that one from the dealership. I got it on the 23rd, and it is even shorter than the crown shaft. My original shaft measures 23 1/4" & the borgesen 21" that's 2 1/4". Well I will be calling them tomorrow to try and resolve this issue. Hope this helps anyone else with a similar issue.