Intermediate steering shaft questions

[trailyota]

You can read the below, but the short of this question is what are these plastic rings on my intermediate shaft, and how deep do these rings scribe into the metal shaft?

The total story, and more detail below:

I recently completed the SAS on my 88 4runner, and moved the front axle about 2.5 inches forward. When I did this I obviously had to move the steering box too. On my 81 I just pulled out the intermediate shaft to make up for the additional length. On my 88 the shaft was too short, and needed a spacer. I could've put a spacer into the old shaft, but I noticed the joint was ALOT smaller, and didn

 

[trailyota]

Also, does anyone know of a good company that has a reasonably priced custom length intermediate steering shaft?

 

[WHITE TRASH1]

The plastic is only about 1/8" deep at most. If you need a longer one get one from a 3rd gen it is about 2ish inches longer. Or you can just cut the round portion and sleeve it longer.

 

[Rix]

the rings are there to stop vibrations from coming thru the steering shaft and it's supposed to collapse in a crash.

 

[Pook]

the rings are there to stop vibrations from coming thru the steering shaft and it's supposed to collapse in a crash.

The rubber ragjoint is to stop vibration, the plastic is to tighten up the slip joint and to help is slide and collapse in an accident. If it was tight metal on metal it could rust solid with time and cause issues when it needed to slip.