Hello, My name Is Triston.
Please bear with me, I've never done this before. I'm asking here because I'm told that this pickup is the same as the ford ranger. I bought a 1997 Mazda B2300 4x2 manual, standard cab, standard bed pickup for my Daughter as a first vehicle. It has been making noise for quite awhile so I crawled under it to see what the issue was. I am not a mechanic but I dabble a little. I have a lifted 06 ford f250 power stroke-super crew-long bed. I can do a lot of things but when it gets too technical I have a very good, honest mechanic that I can go to. Anyway, I took a picture of the problem, hit the internet, and hit a brick wall. I cant find anything that remotely resembles her drive shaft. All replacement drive shafts don't look right. I finally came across some used on e-bay that looked right. So I decided to come on here and ask, because even my mechanic had never seen it before. I will post a picture, someone please tell me what I'm looking at and maybe how to fix it? the drive shaft itself looks great. Thankyou all for your input. Greatly Appreciated!

That ring is hanging there loose. When we drive it it makes a god awful noise.

 

It's a counter balance, it used to be attached to the driveline yoke by rubber.

I'd just pull the driveline, remove the ring and re-install the driveline without it.