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One of my rear driveshafts needs replacing, and the other feels like it could be a bit worn as well but not too bad. I *thought* I'd had a brilliant stroke of luck when I managed to find someone selling a pair of rear driveshafts from their 03plate blobeye WRX they'd had from new, then put new boots on, then removed at approx. 40k miles and stored when they converted to 6 speed.
Essentially, they didn't fit- the splines on the ones I've bought from him are a larger diameter. He has sent me a photo of the car they came off with the reg. and confirmed he is 100% sure they came off his UK Blobeye WRX that he'd had from new and had not modified up until that point.
In the pictures, the shafts that still have a decent amount of green coating on the joint cups/housings are the 40k mile ones I've bought. Mine is the rust coloured one. All of the pictures are of the inboard spline, but both ends were different.
Mine top, "new" one bottom:
Two new ones on the left, mine on the right:
"New" one on the left, mine on the right, visible difference in the diameter and end of the spline:
Mine on the left, two "new" ones on the right:
Here is where the plot thickens a little bit- my car has "53 WRX" written in yellow paint pen on the prop, suggesting it is not the original but from a breaker perhaps? The one rear driveshaft I removed came out of the hub very easily and clearly has some oil/grease on the splines, you can see this clearly on the left in the last picture, and when I had a front driveshaft out a year ago or so that was also very easy. I'm unsure if they've been removed before but they didn't have any rust on the splines and were totally free, so maybe? On the other hand, all the bolts on my rear suspension were very rusted solid when I changed everything, and the car was pretty much totally standard (I think) when I bought it, all the bushes were definitely original.
From memory measuring the inboard/diff end of the spline, the one off my car had roughly a 25mm diameter, and the bigger ones I bought were more like 27mm. I can measure the bigger ones I've bought but unfortunately I didn't write down the measurement of the ones on my car as I was annoyed at that point and didn't think to after taking pictures!
Can anyone shed any light on what I've bought? Could the seller be mistaken? Did early blobeyes perhaps get different shafts? Has someone fitted a different rear diff and hubs to my car at some point in its life?
Driveshafts for the newage WRX are the same for MY01 through to mid MY05, however saloon and wagon are different part numbers.
Maybe take a few measurements
Thank you for the measurements. This confirms that these are STI rear driveshafts which is a shame as they're in great condition. However, I am glad that nothing is amiss on my car and I simply need to actually purchase some WRX rear driveshafts.
Returning to this, I have spoken to a breaker who has indicated that not only are STI driveshafts different to WRX, the widetrack shafts are different (longer apparently) than non widetrack STI rear driveshafts.
Is there information on the measurements of both so that I can compare? Or is the table above for an early blobeye so therefore the STI shafts listed on it are non-widetrack?
So, the set of driveshafts I have match the STI measurements in the first table, which is MY01-05? This would indicate then that they are non-widetrack STI shafts?
That's great, thank you so much.
So, the set of driveshafts I have match the STI measurements in the first table, which is MY01-05? This would indicate then that they are non-widetrack STI shafts?
The WRX shafts originally discussed at that time are the same length MY01 - MY05
Original table came from the MY01 manual, I believe and is the same through to MY04.
As far as the STI is concerned the shafts changed with the wide track for MY05 onwards
08 February 2021, 07:40 PM
Blobeye WRX Rear Driveshaft Confusion
