1.9 Driveshafts With 309 Wishbones

[Anthony 1,000]

Am I right in thinking that the only potential "pop out" issues some people suffer with using 1.9 driveshafts and 309 wishbones is on full-lock, and under normal running pose no issues at all?

 

I ask because after spending yesterday swapping the front running gear over to 309 stuff on my 1.6, I had to use the 1.9 'shafts that were still attached to the hubs as I couldn't remove them to fit the 309 'shafts. The hub nuts just will not come undone with hand tools no matter what I've tried, and in the end the breaker bar snapped there was so much force on it

 

Hence I'm stuck with 1.9 'shafts for the time being until I figure out a way of getting the hubnuts undone (hopefully attacking them with an airgun will do the trick) but in the meantime I need to use the car and am on track on Saturday - and the last thing I want is a driveshaft to explode/pop-out whilst doing big speeds....

[Bats 0]

Am I right in thinking that the only potential "pop out" issues some people suffer with using 1.9 driveshafts and 309 wishbones is on full-lock, and under normal running pose no issues at all?

 

I ask because after spending yesterday swapping the front running gear over to 309 stuff on my 1.6, I had to use the 1.9 'shafts that were still attached to the hubs as I couldn't remove them to fit the 309 'shafts. The hub nuts just will not come undone with hand tools no matter what I've tried, and in the end the breaker bar snapped there was so much force on it

 

Hence I'm stuck with 1.9 'shafts for the time being until I figure out a way of getting the hubnuts undone (hopefully attacking them with an airgun will do the trick) but in the meantime I need to use the car and am on track on Saturday - and the last thing I want is a driveshaft to explode/pop-out whilst doing big speeds....

Anthony - get some heat in to the nut - close up heat gun or blowtorch - for a minute or so. best of luck, Jim

[V1 RDE 0]

Mine were being a bastard today, blowtorch does the trick though along with lots of swearing and a breaker bar!

[Rob Turbo 3]

Be careful with the heat tho, you dont want to damage the wheel bearing, what i usually do is slide a bit of scaf bar (about 4') over the breaker bar to get plenty leaverage!

[Anthony 1,000]

Be careful with the heat tho, you dont want to damage the wheel bearing, what i usually do is slide a bit of scaf bar (about 4') over the breaker bar to get plenty leaverage!

Tried that (well, it was only a 2' bit of bar on a 2' breaker bar) and had two people pulling on it, yet it still wouldn't budge and like I said, eventually the breaker bar snapped. I'll try again when I get a replacement breaker bar and find a long piece of scaffold pole, but clearly there was a hell of alot of force being applied to snap the breaker bar (the metal snapped, not the pin)

 

I've never failed getting a hubnut off before no matter how stuborn, but this pair are being a right 'mare...

[Ahl 4]

Maybe its been done up with some studlock?

[kate205gti 4]

u need martha

[Alastairh 47]

Bring it up to Kibworth.

 

I fancy a challenge.

[Anthony 1,000]

Bring it up to Kibworth. I fancy a challenge.

You're on

 

The original question remains though - does problem that some people have experienced with the shorter 1.9 driveshafts "popping out" only occur on full lock? I assume that's the case, but the prospect of the destruction a driveshaft "popping out" at speed would result in is enough to seek confirmation....

[Alastairh 47]

Well how much more do they stick out though.

 

Its not THAT much, would of thought bearings wouldn't last long though.

 

bloody waek southeners,

 

Must remember to eat my weetabix...

[Pug_101 0]

Silly idea but your not tightening it by an chance.

 

Can also try hitting bolt with a couple of sharp blows instead of blowtorch.

 

Failing that before the nut is f**ked take it down to your local tyre dealer and get the impact wrench on it.

[SPGTi 2]

I would have thought he biggest problem with running the 205 shafts would be the gearbox oil leaking from the diff esp. on the passenger side. I know when ever I mess with that side I only need to move the shaft a few mill. before oil starts pouring out. This could lead to the diff exploding.

 

Steve

[jonnie205 1]

You will be fine on the 205 shafts, you will have no worries there. In rallying then can pop out on full throttle fulllock moments but on track you will be ok.

 

You often need a 3/4 drive breaker to do hub nuts or a propper air gun.

[Pugnut 9 1 Cars]

i ran with 1.9 shafts for over over a year with no issues at all.

[Kev-G 1]

I'll disagree here - I had 2 driveshafts come apart on the O/S within 1 mile of spirited driving....I wouldn't trust them....

[DaveK 0]

dont risk it dude. I was going to go down thie route of just using 1.9's but should they pop out or something explode i wud have been mighty unchuffed.

 

it wouldnt be any fun giving it some stick if u were worried about the shafts coming out.

[tom_m 0]

i ran with 1.9 shafts for over over a year with no issues at all.

 

ditto with extra 'spirited'

[205007 12]

i would definetly run 309 shafts with 309 wishbones just to be on the safe side

my 1st mi16 conversion on 309 wishbones popped the 1900 shaft out on a reverse park and the shaft was fubared and i was stranded

i think the fact the engine was tilted on a longer bottom mount made it worse

 

i recently got some bx gti driveshafts from graham and they are exactly the same length as 309 gti ones although im not 100% sure the long one is identical where it runs through engine mount

[16v205 9]

I had 1.6 shafts and 309 bottom arms. They done a few trackdays, 1/4 miles and several thousand road miles without any issue of popping out or oil leaking.

 

Rich

[jackherer 543]

I mixed some driveshafts up and ended up accidentally building my mates pug with 205 shafts and it was two years before I realised and they were fine.

[Banjo 1]

Airgun or just chisel them off, have had to do that a few times now.

Ben

[PUGugly 0]

When I was changing over front set ups I tryed

 

1.9 lower arms with 309 shafts. That just didn't work, wobble and knocking noises were so so bad!!

 

1.9 lower arms with 1.6 shafts worked ok when I broke a drive shaft but it's a pain in the arse having to keep swapping hubs over as well as all the other work.

 

309 gti lower arms with 1.9 shafts didn't work to well, lost a lot of gearbox oil over a short time and the shafts popped out twice, both at very inconvenant times.

 

If you can stick with 309 shafts and arms, much better setup.

 

Good luck with the chisel and blow torch!!!

[shepherdfte 0]

Just thinking about going with 309 arms meself (see my new post), and happen to have new driveshafts already (1.6 shafts and 1.6 hubs for which I have brand new brakes so they are remaining!). I was thinking about having a spacer made up to go on the shaft behind the hub (would have the hub nut machined thinner as well to allow the locking fold to continue working). I will check, but I think the 205-309 change is about 5mm.

 

Any thoughts folk?

[PUGugly 0]

Just thinking about going with 309 arms meself (see my new post), and happen to have new driveshafts already (1.6 shafts and 1.6 hubs for which I have brand new brakes so they are remaining!). I was thinking about having a spacer made up to go on the shaft behind the hub (would have the hub nut machined thinner as well to allow the locking fold to continue working). I will check, but I think the 205-309 change is about 5mm.

 

Any thoughts folk?

 

If you are really going to be driving hard my honest advice would be to sell your 1.6 setup and upgrade to the 309 driveshafts to go with your 309 ft arms. Much stronger set up, far less likely to break and not that expensive really.

 

Spacer might work but by the time you have paid machining costs and done some trial and error testing I'm sure it would be easier and cheaper to swap hubs and shafts.

[Anthony 1,000]

Just to say a big thanks to Jonnie205 for managing to crack off the hubnuts for me yesterday. In the end it took a meaty 3/4" drive breaker bar, a scaffold extension, and him jumping up and down on it whilst I stood on the brakes (to stop the wheel spinning) to crack them off

 

The 1.9 'shafts seem to have survived fine and I've had no issues (yet) with them, but now the nuts have been cracked off I'll be fitting 309 GTi shafts to be on the safe side

 

If you are really going to be driving hard my honest advice would be to sell your 1.6 setup and upgrade to the 309 driveshafts to go with your 309 ft arms. Much stronger set up, far less likely to break and not that expensive really.

 

Spacer might work but by the time you have paid machining costs and done some trial and error testing I'm sure it would be easier and cheaper to swap hubs and shafts.

A spacer should work fine in my opinion - all you need to do is stop the CV joint from pulling apart. Strength I don't personally believe is much of an issue either - plenty of Mi16's and the odd turbo running on 1.6 'shaft without issue

 

As said though, 309 shafts and hubs aren't that much money really in the grand scale of things...