GKN: 1 - Shaftec: 0

Shaftec is on the bottom.

It had about 200 miles on it when the tone ring fell off. The tone ring is not broken or damaged in any way, it just came off. It was causing the ABS to activate on the right front of the car, especially at high speed, thereby sending me careening into oncoming traffic every time I pressed the brake pedal. I ended up disabling ABS altogether to stop this terrifying behavior.

Also, the outer CV on the Shaftec is almost completely devoid of grease. It was vibrating horribly on the highway in 5th and 6th gears. This after about 2500 miles.

Cheap Chinese garbage... I don't have the appropriate swear words to describe how aggravating this is.

And then we wonder why I can't by an ignition switch for my 1971 VW Beetle that will last more than 10 starts (Chinese aftermarket junk).

More of the same above. One is better off rebuilding the OE shafts.

Chinese Replacement Automotive Parts

Go with Raxles rebuilds for OE replacements, or rebuild yourself.

What's really annoying is the Shaftec axle wasn't that cheap to begin with because I had to order it from Europe. B5.5 tripod axles for manual trans are few and far between here, and I had none to rebuild since the originals were for auto trans.

Luckily, ID Parts recently started selling precisely those axles in the GKN brand, which are infinitely better. They don't stock them, though, so they take a while to get here. The price is about the same as Raxles, but there's no core charge because they're "new", so this actually ends up being cheaper than Raxles... albeit without the lifetime warranty.

I think the manuals are a lot more forgiving with chineasium axles.

I have never known a Chaxle to hold up well in any Volkswagen, especially a B5, ESPECIALLY a diesel.

I hoard OEM axles, though. I can always successfully rebuild them. But there is no help for the Chaxles, they are only scrap bin items.

And since Volkswagen has NLA most of them, this has become a real problem. Shame so many morons at shops just chuck a perfectly good OEM axle just because of a split boot.

Nash_TDI said:

I think the manuals are a lot more forgiving with chineasium axles.

Click to expand...

This was on a manual

oilhammer said:

I have never known a Chaxle to hold up well in any Volkswagen, especially a B5, ESPECIALLY a diesel.
I hoard OEM axles, though. I can always successfully rebuild them. But there is no help for the Chaxles, they are only scrap bin items.
And since Volkswagen has NLA most of them, this has become a real problem. Shame so many morons at shops just chuck a perfectly good OEM axle just because of a split boot.

Click to expand...

GKN is the OEM supplier for VW, so I feel a little better about buying those. I bought Shaftec for both the left and right sides for this swap. The right one failed in 2 different ways within 2500 miles. Now I'm considering getting another GKN in the near future to pre-emptively replace the left side. If they ever fail, I'll just have them rebuilt by Raxle and then I can profit from a lifetime warranty

Yep, GKN/Lobro is the OEM supplier for those. VAG uses some others, too. Flexconn or something (they have a sticker). Lobro has been the supplier for CV joints since they started using CV joints... literally in 1968. GKN bought out Lobro some time ago.

That is what is great about these OEM ones, though, as you can buy GKN/Lobro boots and outer joint/boot kits and rebuild them almost indefinitely. Some of the inners are a bit trickier, though, depending on which design they use. You can also swap the joints (not the shafts) side to side to get a renewed surface if they are for some reason really bad.

Another trick I do on the B5s is take the axle bolt out at the hub, and pump grease in to the axle, and because they are hollow it will actually flow all the way into the inners if you loosen a clamp and make a stint (cut off chunk of brake line works perfect) for the air to escape.

The reason the inners cause issues, even if the boots on them never get bad, is because all the grease flows out of them towards the outside and the outside ones are the ones that routinely need boot replacement. So over time, eventually all the grease works its way totally OUT of the axle altogether. This is why it is so important to inspect and if necessary replace the outer boots as soon as any breach is noticed.

Oh weird, I had no idea the axles were hollow. I don't remember seeing that when I rebuilt a rear axle, but I wasn't paying close attention.

Once thing I noticed when I installed a Raxle in the back is that it was literally STUFFED with grease, to overflowing at every extremity. I ended up getting some all over the exhaust because there was so much of it. Apparently you just can't use too much grease!

Goreman, what size inner flanges do you have on the 01E?

I have no problem find OE replacement axles for my 01E - junkyards now know my car as a 2002 audi A4 manual. As long as the inner flange is 108mm, I can find all the axles I want.

If I'm willing to change over shafts (getting the inner tripot joint off is tricky, I have to grind away factory peening on the joint/cup in order to get the spider out), I can use the inners and outers from autos as well, as the auto shafts are shorter and need to be swapped out for the longer manual shafts.

I also pull "an Oilhammer" and swap the joints from side to side to get fresh surfaces.

Windex said:

Goreman, what size inner flanges do you have on the 01E?

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I have 130 mm tripod flanges. I have some 108 mm 01E flanges that I bought from someone on the forum (may have been you! I forget now/edit: nope, was vwztips), but I haven't put them on yet. Been waiting for the transmission to give me an excuse to do so, like some kind of fluid leak due to a seal failure. But it's been so perfect so far, I hesitate to touch it in any way. I've had bad experiences in the past with opening up used transmissions that were perfectly fine, only to have them spring magical leaks afterward. It doesn't take much to disturb a seal that's been doing great for 200,000 km (that's the assumed mileage on this transmission since it came from a C5 A6 2.5 TDI)

This is always an option:
http://advancedautomotion.com/shop/product_info.php/cPath/69/products_id/613
.

Yep, although that's $100 more than buying brand new GKN axles through ID Parts that have the exact same joints at both ends.