Hi all, I'm halfway through replacing the stub + intermediate shaft on my Mk2 after the splines let go on the motorway last week (managed to diagnose the issue and get this far thanks to the excellent post by Mirez about it!) but I'm stumped trying to get the stub shaft into the gearbox. I can't see anything convenient to pry against underneath the car, and despite leaning a decent amount of my weight on it while trying to get the bolt to start in the threads, it's not moving in far enough. I've assembled it as per the diagram in Mirez's post (spring, spring seat/cap thingy, compression seal pointing inwards towards the splines, then circlip) so I think I'm just struggling to put enough force on it.

First question, probably daft: is there a reason I can't just use a slightly longer bolt that'll reach the threads without having to compress the spring? i.e. will that stick out the far side and foul on something when it's done up, or bottom out in the threads before it's tight or something?

Second question, what tool do you suggest using, and what bit of the car do I brace it against? The next thing I hit going out from the end of the stub shaft is the anti-roll bar, is that solid enough to push against?

Thanks in advance!

I have no idea really, but could you just use a longer bolt and it will pull itself all into place that way providing the bolt can go in/through far enough?

It sounds like the sort of job that can make a grown man scream tbh

I do remember it being awkward to get the tension on it. I'm 99% sure that I applied tension to the bolt rather then the stub and allowed it to pull the stub in rather then trying to keep the pressure on the stub and then add the bolt.

It was a fair few years back now but I seem to remember using a ratchet driver and a very large flat blade / prybar to lever on the ratchet.

I don't have a longer bolt to hand, and I'd be worried about bolting it in and fouling the bolt on something the far side. That didn't seem to happen when I just screwed the bolt in with no stub shaft, but I couldn't be sure I'd rotated everything through its full range, and I wasn't about to gamble my gearbox on it!

My strategy was to put the bolt in, with the allen key on the end of a long extension bar, and lean on the back of my impact gun while spinning it, in an attempt to shove the shaft home and engage it in the threads simultaneously. No dice. I've thrown it all back together with the bolt loose and I'm probably going to get the damn thing to a garage. Not often I admit defeat, but it's in for its MOT on thursday anyway.

Interestingly, the old bolt was barely finger-tight, if it was even threaded in. I shoved an allen key on a long extension bar in there and twiddled it about by hand to check it was engaged with the head, and the bolt started to move. Doubt that was relevant to the splines failing, as the gearbox end of the stub shaft looked completely fine, but it's making me consider just driving the damn thing with the new shaft like that, at least as far as a the garage.

As I'm not sure how many miles I'll get out of this new set, and Motomax don't have their shafts in stock at the moment, I'm sorely tempted to contact a custom driveshaft manufacturer over here and see what they can do. Might cost a few bob, but I'd have gladly paid the £200+ for the motomax stuff for the peace of mind.

Can you not use a small bottle jack or even a scissor jack and use the driveshaft support bracket to push against.