rear axle splines different? 5mt swap rear diff.

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olsen726
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rear axle splines different? 5mt swap rear diff.

Post by olsen726 »

ok, so i am about finished up doing a 5 speed swap into my 1994 legacy tw. i have a complete 2001 legacy gt limited that i used for the swap.

so i got all of the transmission side of things installed, and ready to rock and roll.

where i am having issues is the rear axles, i installed the new diff from the 2001 legacy gt donor car ( which uses male axles, instead of female like the original diff) so i though, ok no problem, i will just use the axles that came out of the donor car. well, that wont work, because the outer splines seem to be bigger on new axles, so they wont fit into the hubs that are on my car.
so once again, i think... ok no problem, i will just swap the inner axle stubs from the new axles, onto my old axles, which would make it so everything bolts up and works fine... once again, its a no go, because the coupler things are different sizes, so you cant fit the cup over the bearings for the different axles...

so now i am unsure what to do, i had no idea that r160 subaru axles used different sizes on the hubs... so what do i need to do to make this work?

is it possible to maybe take the stub ends off of my old diff, and install them onto the new diff?

or is there axles that will fit from the new diff to the existing hubs on this car?

or could i possibly press the hubs off of the donor car, and into the rear end of my car, that way i could just use the axles that are already on my car?

sorry if this post doesn't make sense, let me know if anything is confusing, so i can try to clear things up.
olsen726
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Re: rear axle splines different? 5mt swap rear diff.

Post by olsen726 »

so to clarify

i'm trying to put a 2001 legacy gt 4.11 vlsd rear differential into my 1994 legacy turbo wagon

how do i make the axles work, i have the set that go to the differential, but the stub ends wont fit into my rear hubs

and the axles that go to my wagon wont work, because they are female axles, and the new diff requires male axles.

i already tried just switching the ends of the axles, but they are different sizes, so i cant just swap the ends on them to make it work
mike-tracy
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Re: rear axle splines different? 5mt swap rear diff.

Post by mike-tracy »

The 95-99 2nd gen legacy axles are what you need to make this work. *any* 2nd gen legacy rear axles will work.
1992 Legacy SS 5mt, build in progress
Josh Colombo wrote: Mon Jan 14, 2002 10:23 am Wait....I'm confused now.
olsen726
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Re: rear axle splines different? 5mt swap rear diff.

Post by olsen726 »

sweet! thank you, so i take it they changed the splines on the hubs when they switched to the multilink rear suspension?
mike-tracy
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Re: rear axle splines different? 5mt swap rear diff.

Post by mike-tracy »

Subaru has a couple different rear spline patterns, for example the 1st Gen Impreza has at least 2 different ones. (3 that I know of if you count the GC's with the r180 rear end)

2nd gen Legacy happens to have the same track width and spline count as needed so they've been my go to source of axles for years.
1992 Legacy SS 5mt, build in progress
Josh Colombo wrote: Mon Jan 14, 2002 10:23 am Wait....I'm confused now.
olsen726
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Re: rear axle splines different? 5mt swap rear diff.

Post by olsen726 »

i see, thank you for the help! i located a set, and will be picking them up here in an hour or so
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