custom axles?

[Jets303]

I did not no. The sleeves were different ID's so they butted right up. The rose welds did help with the center portion though. The Audi one is hollow yes, 1/4'' wall tube. Unless you are making big power, I wouldn't worry much about it. I am estimating being in the 450-500 range with the S6 motor and its holding up fine.

[Tallon]

Thank Jets, very nice! So you didn't weld the axles together before sliding the sleeve up? Guess your sleeves are too long to do that. Were your axles also hollow tube to solid? That's what I didn't expect when I went to cut the audi axle.

[Jets303]

I spun some out of some blank stock. Super tight tolerances. I had to heat the sleeve and cool the axle to get them to fit. I then did 2 passes on the tig and had Doug's balancing in Denver balance them. One didnt need any but the other he did add material and shave some down. Not entirely sure what he did but I get zero vibration at higher speeds.

[Tallon]

Well no wonder the audi axle is larger diameter, it is hollow... 

[Tallon]

3/8 wall tubing for the sleeve, because .25 was more expensive  this seems like it is too heavy
I pressed a smaller tube in to half the length of the sleeve and now it is snug to the smaller diameter gm axle on that side
3 holes each side for rosette welds

[lambobuilder]

If nothing else, you could make an adapter plate on the transmission to fit the axles. The Lexus axles come in various lengths.
Charley referenced MasterPro 60-5138 has 29" compressed length and MasterPro 60-5061 has compressed length of 27 9/16" length.

[Tallon]

hah that's interesting for sure. I have an auto trans. I think it would depend on the chassis more than anything, making the axle lengths different, so I'd probably have to shorten or lengthen them either way. Having a lexus axle would make the diameter consistent at least.

[lambobuilder]

Not sure what transaxle you have but check out Charley (76MX) solution using off the shelf Lexus axles. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfBC2UFBQvM
Also the original article he wrote can be found here. https://lambobuilder.com/aventador/AxleDelemaSolved.pdf

[eddie]

Check some custom axle shop , in US should thousand of

[eddie]

Forgot to say? They told me it need special weld due to GM shafts
Charged me 200$ back 10 years ago .

[eddie]

I would ask some welding pro shop about it,
I was recommender to our shop by Jim  Dinner who knows a lot about that , he made a reacher on those mating axles 

[Tallon]

Thanks Eddie. We have some powerful migs, we weld railroad track/switch points, I'm not sure what it does to the heat affected zone of the steel, is that the issue? So if the GM shaft is harder, it will be too brittle?

I have heard of axles breaking near the ends of the sleeve instead of at the splice, the HAZ. That's main reason I was going to weld only 45 degree angles hopefully it's better. Then again, I'm not building a race car.

[eddie]

finished welded shafts

[eddie]

I did my axles GM to mate with Audi  , but watch out Gm shafts are different  steel lot more harder, I took it to a special welding shop to do it. by mig it's not strong on Gm shaft.

[Tallon]

Since I am running oem lambo wheels I am trying to solve the problem of mating the axles of the transmission to the c6 hubs (30 spline), which I upgraded from c4 hubs (27 spline) as the c4 corvette did not use a rear cv axle.
So here I have axles for a 5hp19 transmission from an audi A6 and the gm axle.

I've searched around to find the best way to change the length of an axle or mate two different axles together and come to the conclusion that welding them together at a 45 degree angle and then slipping over appropriate sized sleeves, with the ends also cut to 45 should be adequate.
The weld from my understanding would need to go on very hot and cooled very slowly, still possibly making the steel brittle. I don't know if preheating does anything here.
One problem is both axles are different diameter so I need a sleeve with one side machined more than the other and I'm not sure I can do that accurately. Maybe grinding down the larger shaft would be a better idea?

I'm wondering what others have done or would recommend. I know there are places that make custom axles but pricey.