which Driveshafts fit??

[call_giles_]

Just picked up a 1600 van gearbox, to go into my beetle.

im told my beetle shafts won't fit into van cv joints without machining and weekening.

so what are people using, treker, auto??

thanks, Giles

[trev]

early N/A Porsche 944 drive shafts are the same length as a beetle and use bus sized CV joints. You can use the beetle outer joint on them or upgrade to 944 stub axles at the outer end.

[call_giles_]

cool, i'll look into those tomorrow as to if i can get a pair and how much they are!

my other idea was to make/get made some 13mm thick ring shaped adapter plates. i dont see a problem size wise being that the shafts will be stretched out a bit from moving the box about. and i doubt if made accuratley it will make a strength problem. any thoughts???

[trev]

just get some 944 ones. They aren't expensive...

[ricola]

Are you sur ethey'r ethe same length Trev? I've seen they are a bit shorter on some driveshaft threads, maybe the 944 CVs are thicker giving about the same overall installed length? I used them in my speedster with a 915 and 944 steel arms with no problem
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http://www.ricola.co.uk

[trev]

the reason I said they're the same was because I temporarily had the 915, stock VW steel arms and stock VW driveshafts in my bug for a while. With 901 type1 sized output flanges the VW arms worked perfectly. Since the Porsche steel arms are dimensionally the same as the VW ones I presumed the drive shafts were the same too.



mind you, thinking about it, the difference may have been made up in the output flanges (901 left, 915/930 right) the 901 sticks out of the trans more:



915 trans, 930 sized output flanges, 944 early (narrow) aluminium arms and matching driveshafts:



Blinchickenracing give the bug and 944 axles as almost the same:

http://www.blindchickenracing.com/How_to/CVJoints_Axles/axles_101.htm

Giles, better do your homework before wasting your money

[richbaker78]

when I IRSd my mates split with a 1303 box and bay trailing arms we used beetle CVs on the box end of the van driveshaft and van ones on the hub end. What you are doing is this (but in reverse using a beetle shaft) so they must fit??

to add some confusion - the 944 (s2) shafts i had had a CV joint with a Van pcd but a different spline in the centre.

regards the length of the driveshafts I did quite a bit of research on this - ill dig out my findings when im back in th office next week.

[call_giles_]

you can put beetle joints on a van shaft - but you have to put some kind of packing behind the circlip.

but you cant put van joints on a beetle shaft without machining.

(so im told)

[trev]

[doppelganger]

can you not just use the porsche outer shafts and use bus or porsche cv`s?
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[rjes]

I can get custom shafts made in any length, with two options on material - standard (street / light race use), and 'unbreakable'.

I think Rich Baker's suggestion is the best source of info. Without meaning to sound critical, I think there are far more people prepared to spend ages discussing things they've maybe read about but never done on web forums - not so much on vwkd, but another well known VW forum seems terrible for it. If only they'd put the same effort into actually researching and finding out what really works.
I prefer to make my choices of parts based on facts rather than info such as 'X is about the same as Y', 'or these must be OK because someone else used them'. 'About the same' may be the difference between just about working and catastrophic failure.
If a bus / Porsche / etc box ix Xmm wider across it's output flanges than a Beetle box, then the shafts ideally need to ne X/2mm shorter, assuming everything else is stock.
If I've chosen my parts based on facts, and I make a mistake or a bad choice and it all goes wrong and costs a lot to fix, there's nobody else to blame except me. That's a lesson I learned on my turbo Beetle years ago after having the carbs jetted on a rolling road, only to melt a piston due to it going lean under boost a week later. That was the last time anyone other than me ever set up an engine of mine! The rolling road costs would have been better spent on an air fuel ratio meter and a set of jet drills, which is what I resorted to from then on anyway.

If we all measure whatever shafts we have lying around and create a table, then your choice could be based on factual info. I have a piece of paper with a few dimensions on somewhere, plus the old 'Bug Power' article, and ETKA has a lot of info on shaft lengths too. I've been planning on creating a table on my web site showing all the half shaft lengths and across flanges gearbox widths, CV thicknesses and maximum angles, etc that I can find. This thread will hopefully prompt me to get on with it, except I can't find the piece of paper just now.....
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Regards,

Richard,

R J Engineered Solutions
Quality Subaru Powered VW Components
www.rjes.com

[doppelganger]