Drive train "slop" - 39 PU

[malpais]

I have two questions, and I think I know the answers, but hope I'm wrong.

Put the drive shaft, rear axle ass'y, drums and rear wheels on my 39 PU chassis a couple of days ago. After tightening things up, I noticed I can rotate each rear tire through about 2" of free play before the drive shaft (through the speedo hole) or the other rear wheel moves.

Or, in other words, I have about 7.5 deg free play.This is considerably too much, isn't it?

I had this a part a few years ago, and put in new bearings, but I don't remember what splines, backlash, gear contact looked like - guess I'm gonna find out.

Second question...... I pulled out another rear axle while thinking about this. It didn't have a drive shaft, so I can't see how the pinion input shaft fit's in the drive shaft, but it looks to me like the input splines are shot. They are not supposed to have a "step" in them are they? I've attached photos.

Thanks, as always!

Gordon