Front driveshaft noise

[TCR]

Like a lot of people I’ve had trouble with replacing the front driveshafts. Put 2 new ones into my ‘91 Brumby and still had what sounded like clicking cvs. Eventually traced it to the journal/spline at the end of the aftermarket cv being about 3/4mm longer than the Subaru original. After the journal that the wheel bearings sit on there is a shoulder at the end of the spline, before the thread. On the aftermarket driveshafts (3/4mm longer)the hub butts up against the shoulder and this stops the crush effect needed to properly locate the cv end in the hub. It was only after looking closely at the aftermarket cvs and an original cv that I noticed the difference, also there were witness marks on the aftermarket cv journals that showed the bearing was spinning on the journal when it shouldn’t have moved. Rebuilt original driveshafts, problem solved. There’s lots of comments about aftermarket driveshafts being rubbish, I don’t think they are, I think you just need to make they are dimensionally correct in every way to the originals. I will have the aftermarket cvs machined to the correct dimensions and I think they’ll make fine spares in the future.